enjoying myself

Differentiating between a win and a loss

First of all, lets complete the formalities. It has been really a loooong wait, a wait of about 21 years since the performance of Kapil's devils upstaged English team, that the Indian team won a test series in England. The series have been a real turn-around for the Indian cricket team. For probably the first time in last 20 years, India won without depending upon the performance of a single individual. None of the veterans of the Indian batting echelons scored a big score, yet we scored heavily as everyone came up with glittering performances. Everyone stood up and got counted when it was necessary.

Karthik, who was expected to be a sitting duck kind of an opener played with a lot of grit and determination to play wonderful innings in all the test matches. He needs to cultivate a habit of converting his fifties into bigger scores, before he can be counted amongst the big names. Sachin played with a great poise and determination to build platforms for towering scores in last two test matches. Boy, I miss his flamboyance and his knack of dominating the bowlers around. Probably grown seeing him murdering the bowling attacks makes it difficult for me to digest the accumulator role which he is content to play currently. Dada was the best Indian batsmen showing a great positive outlook as well as steely resolve to score runs. Dhoni played contrasting innings in Lords and Oval, with both of them played keeping the match situation in mind. n i dare not miss the century of tireless Kumble who milked the tired bowlers to get his first test century. Zaheer Khan became the brand ambassador for Jelly Beans. I am pretty sure tht the sale of Jelly Beans would have sky rocketed after the 'free ki' publicity which they got in the first test match . I just hope tht it doesnt become a precent for every mom to be give her kids Jelly Beans instead of Horlicks and Bournvita for helping them to do better in acads. Similarly the bosses might start contemplating to give their employees JB to improving their productivity :)

But as they say, Opinions are like asses and everyone has got one. I too like millions of other cricket fans have been shocked and perplexed by Dravid's decisions in the last test match. First of all he did not declare a follow on even with a lead of 320 runs. Probably he felt tht India cud lose even with such a huge lead and with opposition on the mat. In the whole history of 130+ years of test cricket it has happened just thrice tht a team with 300+ runs lead have lost. Its hard to understand tht how Indian bowlers with just one day in the field and previous night of sound sleep were deemed 'tired'. Somehow even a kid cud hv also figured tht out with less than 170 overs left and English team already on its knees, it was the time to go for a kill. But somehow Dravid took a defensive, retrograde and confidence-lacking step of not declaring a follow on on a pitch which was offering assistance to the bowlers and tht too in an overcast, bowler friendly atmosphere. The worst case scenario wud hv been tht England wud hv batted 120-140 overs and scored about 450 runs in the same. This scenario looked complete bleak given the English performance in the series and even in this case we wud hv been required to score about 100 odd runs in 20-30 overs....easily gettable.

But even this decision was sumehow digested. Everybody hoped tht India is going to score quick runs and give England a target of about 500+ runs with about 140+ overs to bowlers. But we failed to achieve any of these goals. n probably the person responsible for the same was the WALL himself. It was really sad to see Dravid playing with a single digit strike rate and wasting a number of crucial overs. 12 runs in 96 balls...man tht was totally unpardonable n unexplicable...If tht was the team strategy, then i guess he might be contemplating of dropping Ganguly in the future as he scored runs at a brisk rate. Indian already have a pathetic record in dismissing the opposition team in the final innings and the captain himself blocked any chances of doing so. This 'go-slow' strategy left us with too few overs to dismiss the English finally .

was it tht tough to digest 2 victory in the series. Why were we scared to even lap up the win which was there to be taken. why do we need to hv such kind of 'loser' attitude in the team when we had performed well in the whole series. Is this the way we need to deal with the opposition when they are totally down and out tht we dont even try for victory. I remember Manoj Prabhakar and Nayan Mongia dropped once for not playing for victory in a one day match against victory in a difficult situation. n in this match which was their fr grab we lost the plot due to the lack of attitude of the captain. Dravid needs to take responsibility of this decision. He is the captain and he cant hide behind the excuse of 'team-decision'. Had this been the Aussie team, i guess the action against the captain wud hv been taken ruthlessly. We cannot develop the habbit of winning if we keep on living with such an attitude. I seriously dont know whether it shud be deemed as a victory or a loss.

posted by amit @ 3:51 AM