hree days in a row, I got up at 5.30 am with a start wondering what was wrong. Now I know — my subconscious was being jolted by my men in White doing nasty things to themselves, to me and to a helpless nation, that too in the middle of enemy territory. For the first time in many years, I feared switching on the Live sports channel, unable to bear the thought and sight of the massacre of my favourite men and favourite sport, at a not-so-favourite venue.
By the time this gets printed, one would have done the needful to tackle the Sydney shocker, the abject surrender of our playing 11 and the ignominy of being blown away by a lesser Australian team in the middle. When India went into the series, they did so as favourites — the otherwise cocky Australians were struggling with transition woes, unable to stitch up the invincible image they grew up with in the last two decades. Ricky Ponting’s presence in the team was being questioned and their skipper Michael Clarke was still to shed the tag of being a pup in the big game. Mr Cricket Mike Hussey was fighting his own demons with the bat and even the Australian arm was battling somewhat of a strain.
On the other hand, Dhoni was fabled to be leading the “best ever after 2003” team into the final frontier. It was said to be a perfect balance of explosion and solidity for an opening pair in Sehwag and Gambhir, Dravid the Wall to be followed by Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman to take care of the middle order. Next in line Dhoni and Kohli who look good on paper with their run building and damage control prowess. Even the tail looked robust with R Ashwin out there with his not-so-weak bat just in case things were to go bad.
In the bowling department, we were comparatively weaker but then when has India ever banked entirely on the fast arm? It took the Aussies just one match to sort out Yadav and Ishant Sharma never really looked like he meant business. Australia is, as it is not a spinner’s delight, and whatever Ashwin and Co could have done was to be treated as bonus. The lone man standing — Zaheer Khan — couldn’t have been bowling from both the ends.
Call it unfortunate, or more practically our Board’s cussedness to nursing new talent, India’s best today is at its worst. And this is no knee-jerk popular reaction to one-time failure. Actually, nothing has been more consistent than failure (six away defeats in a row) for our fabled team which is not just sad but extremely worrying for a sport that has celestial status in our nation.
Such has been the woe-ridden away ride for Team India that even Dhoni’s captaincy is taking a drubbing. He seems clueless in plugging the loopholes and has aptly been looking for a parachute to somehow arrest the unexplained free fall. Coach Duncan Fletcher hardly seems to have the presence of body or mind required to deal with this abject situation, and that despite his much adorned career with the English team.
One would be able to empathise with Sachin Tendulkar and his dejected walk back to the pavilion at his favourite cricket ground in Sydney. After all, he was unable to score that 100th 100 on a ground where a mere pup made an unbeaten triple hundred and his lieutenants in Ponting and Hussey easy tons and a half. In all, five tons were made on a ground where the master fell to a mediocre delivery by Clarke at 80, that too at a juncture when his team needed him the most.
But why rest the blame only on Tendulkar? What has been Sehwag’s contribution? Yes he is the most explosive opener ever (not entirely correct considering the likes of Adam Glilchrist and Mathew Hayden in the past) but how damaging has this TNT really been? Can we afford to let Sehwag consistently ruin the build-up at the mouth just because we need to take a chance that he just might explode? Where is the responsibility factor that this otherwise great player should be expected to display when he dons white? Even his skipper exhorts him to play his natural game when he should actually be giving him sessions on how to control his bat when stability weighs heavily over meteoric presence.
All this talk will, of course, turn bunkum if one looks at what is up next. Perth flies so high and fast that an equally abject if not worse defeat stares Dhoni and his team. There is also less chance of a Sachin 100 at a venue so hostile to the “flat pitch” Indian frame of mind. Besides, the previously beleaguered Aussies are on a roll and you know what happens when the kangaroo jumps out of the corner. Thanks to the lax Indian arm, their best bats are back in business, they have sorted out the captain and a 4-0 whitewash will be their cornerstone of redemption to previous laxities.
Unbelievable that this is the same Aussie team which went down to the Kiwis in the run up to the India series! But then, India has a knack of muscling up the opposition with wanton non-performance. The defeats, one must point out, have been humiliating and India has not once shown an honest intent to fight back.
And just when a close scrutiny of the team’s surrender should have been top on the charts for the Indian Cricket Board, it has announced its next money spinner tourney — the IPL! The schedule being announced on a day when India showed such a poor report card at Sydney spells doom for the future of cricket, serious meaningful cricket, in our country.
Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer, 8 January, 2012
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