Indian cricket has contrasting reputations; very good at home but abysmal overseas. Seven away-from-home Test defeats in a row have exposed the brittle character of the team when challenged by quality opposition in exacting conditions. From seam and swing in England to pace and bounce in Australia the Indians have failed miserably to adapt.
A successive whitewash stares at India in Australia. Daggers are out. Critics, including the one-Test wonders in TV studios, are baying for blood. Sack the seniors and bring in the youngsters. “Not overnight, please,” Bishan Singh Bedi pleaded. “It can only be a process, not a knee jerk reaction.” He is right. It can only be a process.
India's preparations, according to Bedi, were “barest minimum” and expectations out of place. “At home, Australia is a very tough competitor. They play very hard and not like we do (in domestic cricket). They take great pride in their baggy green (national cap). Do we?”
“It is not such a bad team,” insisted Kapil Dev. “Why don't we give credit to the Australian team too. If I have to blame, I will blame the seniors. They should have taken the responsibility as they have in the past. They should have worked together to improve India's overseas record. But that doesn't happen when you look for personal performances and milestones. It is for the seniors to take the call.”
Collective failure
Anil Kumble was characteristically mellowed in his response. “The seniors certainly have to look at their future. Would they not like to end their career on a high? I don't think we failed because of them. It was a collective failure. Remember, these seniors have contributed enormously in making winning a habit. They have to bite the bullet yes, before or after Adelaide…leave it to them.”
The seniors, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman, Virender Sehwag, will all take the call when the time comes. No doubt about it. The selectors have those plans in place. In any case, these seniors have hardly been a burden. But England and Australia have hurt their reputations in a big way. “I know they will take a call. But Laxman, Dravid and all took their places by performing well,” said Kumble.
Kumble added, “We need to start looking at ourselves. It had to happen. Don't blame the seniors. They did not bat as well as they are used to, but then which youngster has stepped up and taken the responsibility?” Lack of partnerships from the top have consistently hurt India.
What has hurt most is how a team, with the most experienced batting line-up in the world, could make only two 300 and plus totals in 14 innings! The sequence of totals in the last seven Tests is appalling: 286, 261, 288, 158, 224, 244, 300 and 283 in England; 282, 169, 191, 400, 161 and 171 in Australia.
“Difficult to pinpoint one reason or one aspect,” argued Dilip Vengsarkar. “The failure has been collective. So blame the entire team. India has failed in all the departments of the game.”
And that would include administration too. The decline in the standard of first cricket, and coaching methods at the junior level, has hardly helped. “The grooming process is poor for the juniors who hardly get to even interact with senior cricketers. The scheduling of international matches clashing with domestic season happens only in India,” said Kapil.
Bedi did not support slamming the team. “They have lost, yes, but why do we get carried away by one-day performances. Please accept you are not good. You have to look to improve. I will hold the team management too responsible. The togetherness was missing.”
Sourav Ganguly has been ballistic in his comments on air and acidic in his column. “There is talk about Laxman being dropped for the Adelaide Test. If that's the case, the same rule should be applied to other players as well,” he wrote, without naming the obvious “other players.” Kumble struck a reasonable note. “It hurts because overall, not one person stood up. If batsmen have failed, so have the bowlers. There was none to break the long partnerships.
“Not one bouncer was bowled at (David) Warner at Perth. Where else would you bowl a bouncer? At Kotla?” India needs to improve in all departments. No doubt we have to improve our record overseas but it won't happen overnight. This season the chinks got exposed thoroughly in England and Australia.”
No resistance
Vengsarkar asserted, “They are all experienced and know it well but no one offered resistance.
“Everyone has some technical problem but then you have to adapt when it matters. Even I thought this was India's best chance to win a series in Australia. To me, this was the weakest bowling that Australians had in many, many years. They were very inexperienced. It has to be the worst phase of Indian cricket in my memory. Seven Test losses in a row with the verdicts being so overwhelming is awful indeed.”
Analysing Dravid's struggle, Vengsarkar felt, “He has had the tendency to play across the line. But look at his awesome record and contribution to Indian cricket. Let us not be harsh on him.”
Bedi also stood by Dravid. “Being bowled is just one more way of getting out. It doesn't mean you are a bad batsman. He was mainly getting out to a good ball. He didn't play a bad shot and in any case every bowler is entitled to a wicket-taking ball.”
There was support for Laxman too. Kumble asked, “Laxman has played 133 Tests but has been asked 100 times when would he retire. Just not fair to a great batsman.” Said Bedi, “Can anyone deny his stupendous contribution to Indian cricket; an absolute giant. Please don't pull the stalwarts down. Many who criticise them are not fit to even tie their shoe laces.
“Why are we not taking the technical committee to task?” The technical committee is in-charge of cricketing matters including pitches, domestic format, etc. Kapil observed, “The Indians are not used to that bounce and pace, and the length too (in Australia). They can't bowl well on those pitches; can't leave the ball. Lot of things they can't do. So, let Dhoni take the responsibility. He is the captain and it was his duty to motivate. He obviously failed.”
India faces another possible nightmare at Adelaide unless the seniors rise to the occasion. It would be their last Test appearance in Australia.
Keywords: India's tour of Australia
India was let down by batsmen not willing to "guts it out" ; indisciplined bowling; unimaginative,defensive captaincy and finally pathetic fielders escorting the balls to the boundary!Lax man,Dravid,Ishant,Ashwin,Zaheer,Sehwag were real liabilities in the field. As far as batting was concerned inspite of the criticism he has attracted Tendulkar was a head and shoulder better than all the others as he stroked away beautifully from the moment he came to the crease. He was unlucky most of the time as the only mistake he made resulted in his dismissal while many of his compatriots enjoyed lives. One criticism about him is that he failed to look at the larger team goal and got himself embroiled in the short time goal of 100 centuries and put unnecessary pressure on himself!Dravid had some technical problems but was generally ok.Kohli was impressive.The real failures were Sehwag,Dhoni,Gambhir and Laxman!
Problem 1: Too much cricket. Problem 2: Domestic cricket pitches suits batsmen, not bowlers. Problem 3: No accountability in the administration. Eg. If the selectors took the credit for the World Cup win, they should also take responsibility for the loss.
A country of 1.2bn should beat a country of mere 24 million consistently
period. Ihere is clearly a physical disparity and therefore more players
from states like Punjab should be sourced.
Several issues pops-up in my mind. First, MSD's test captaincy skills, who cannot even motivate himself, let alone the youngsters; second, inefficient planning and preparation of the tour, which is clear from a lack of even a two-day practice game between second and third plus third and fourth; third, a collective failure of the top seven (seniors with Dravid being an exception); and fourth, test match temperament. I am amazed that a legend like Kumble is questioning the failure of youngsters to step-up the plate, who do not have sufficient match experience to don that role. To sum up, India were never a great test side and I doubt it would ever be. It's going to take several years to overcome this deficiency, provided a complete overall of the entire Indian cricket setup right from the top (BCCI) is undertaken. Will this happen? Both my heart and head says NO!
Its not about loss, its the no Desire, Application, Discipline and lack of Energy shown by Indian Team..!! James Pattison stayed on wicket amid Fiery Zaheer spell in 1st test match as he wanted to save the test match, Secondly the Ludacrist Selection.. Why not Dinda, Pankaj or Yomavesh or many other 140K bowlers performing in Ranji and Why Mithun and Vinay kumar..!!
Why after 2 test matches the team wasn't changed.. Why Rahane wasn't brought in for Sehwag ? why Rohit wasn't brought in for Dravid / Laxman ? why Pujara or other test batsmen weren't part of Squad ??? Why Tendulkar wasn't made captian and Saha brought in for Dhoni ??
I don't agree with vengsarkar because as he was one of the selctors a couple of year ago and that time he shouldn't have done it to Ganguly after he had one bad series against srilanka. Despite Dravid's 3 centuries in England he was the one who has been completely out of form since 2008. Last time when we played in Australia he did not fit into the eleven and that was one of the the reasons he had to open as Sehwag was knocking door. To be honest it is Dravid who should go first sooner rather than later.
Whenever out team goes abroad they take it as a picnic and indulge themselves in fun loving activities rather than concentrate on the only agenda of winning the matches and nothing else. so how we can expect that they will win !!!
The root cause is Indian batsmen's inability to play on bouncy and
seaming pitches abroad.BCCI has to take a decision to put in drop in
pitches so that Indian players get used to it,otherwise they will
continue to be flat track bullies and fail miserably abroad.They can
have flat pitches also so that India can win when Aussies/Englishmen
play here in India and have home advantage too!
Seniors must take decision to retire in an orderly sequence.There is
no use blaming Srikkanth.The team selected was on merit but the team
as a whole failed.Players like Sehwag, Gambhir have no technique and
will always fail abroad as Ian Chappell said.
What is the use of issuing a bounty on the heads of the senior batsmen when the only bounty the seniors wait for is the annual edition of IPL? Do we not have certain personal milestones to achieve? That said, I'm sure none of us would be great enough to trade it for national pride. For the seniors, the buck is thicker than the blood.
It is a selection fiasco; loading our team with the oldest key batsmen. It is ok on our featherbeds and the Aussies seized the chances with glee. A fraction slowness in reflexes is enough to expose the chinks. Then the technique issues; Sehwag and Gambir just essayed like home. The Aussies knew exactly where our players play their strokes but we did not do such homework on the Punter and Warner. Ponting has revived his career and our God is under threat! I have followed cricket for over hundred years very keenly; but not over the last twenty years! I believe others have an equal right to win too; we win some, others the rest - that should be the right attitude. Comeon, we are not really great athletes; we have regressed in hockey. I remember Ceylon getting beaten hollow by Madras in 1960s in MJ Gopalan trophy series. Now, they have depth of talent to challenge us! They have sporting wickets at home and their star players have less adulation. We need to learn fast on basics!
Anil Kumble is absolutely right. He has the point. Its a collective failure. As in the press conference on 15th Jan after the defeat captain dhoni also said that it was a players who was supposed to perform, and not the seniors. Its all about cricket, no one can't expect the team always to be at its peak. Even in 90's when Sachin lead the team India in Aussie field we had faced a white wash. Moreover team India has a less expose to the fileds in abroads. There are lots of criticize aiming at the team, senior players and captain himself. Have a hope. Team India will come back. Lets support them, not to criticize them.
So what does this prove? Just that all teams are not very good while playing overseas. Most teams these days usually lose in conditions that they are not familiar with. One home series whitewash of a visiting team will settle all doubts, just watch. I absolutely abhor this view that India must somehow prepare fast pitches. Why? It is our strength to play well on slow pitches, turning pitches and so on. Do we see any Australian or English move towards preparing spinning tracks in their countries because they play pathetic cricket in the subcontinent? This self imposed slave mentality must be questioned severely.
Never before has an Indian cricket team got such drubbing in consecutive series, not even during the worst days. We cannot blame the players for this outcome. The BCCI has made huge money out of these players. BCCI’s money spinner termed as’ IPL’ is not Cricket but an all round night show. Big players like Sachin, Dhoni , Sehwag and other international stars are roped in for huge money. The result is a healthy IPL and a crippled test team representing the nation. It all started with big money from corporates for promoting vested interests. The money power is so much that even ICC is not able to stem the rot. The golden goose is dead. The BCCI will not be in a position to run the show of IPL without a good test team. The selling point is winning the tests. Cricket in India is a passion. The best way is to promote a balanced test team with experienced and young players. After all IPL does not need the calibre of Sachin, Dhoni etc. It needs only glamour.
the difference between previous and this tour of england as well as Australia is the contribution of opening batsmen.guys like Aakash Chopra,sanjay bangar and wasim jaffer didnt made runs but they consistently faced 100 balls and take the shine of the new ball making the fab four comfortable with the semi ball.Due to the impact of ipl, t20, all the batsmen are playing cross batted shots resulting in quick runs as well as wickets.opening batsmen and bowlers in test crickets should be a specialist one.BCCI should improve the pitches in india, otherwise winning overseas tour will be a dream only.
Kumble is spot-on - no youngster made his case for the places. Thankfully, no overseas tours for the next two years, which means, the newcomers have ample time to get into the groove. But planning for future tours should include sending players to play in domestic tournaments overseas. Come this May, it will be sick to find Ishant and Umesh toiling in stupid IPL matches!
Next test would be the best to experiment. Anyhow we may not lose worse than what we have done already. Bring in Rahane, Rohit, Varun and Ashwin. Give rest to Shewag (he may be the vice captain but he cannot retain his place as a batsman)and Laxman. Persevere with the newcomers for atleast 10 tests and two overseas tours. Let us build now a team for the future. The stalwarts have done wonders in the past for us. Let us appreciate them and understand that age is a crucial factor in an international game.
The problem is so obvious like the proverbial "elephant in the room' that no one wants to look at! They can't play on bouncy wickets against fast bowlers! There is an accommodation time for all things.The team should have been in Australia and playing few unscheduled matches before they went to play the test matches. They could have even scheduled the one day ones before the test matches to get to know the wickets. This mistake is not new and it is done every time and they fail each time when they go to foreign countries. Would they ever learn!!?
I don't agree with the headline. Dravid, Lax and Sachin have fared better against better Australian bowling attack in the past. All the three were always involved in building partnerships very frequently that only the Austalian team in its prime were the only team doing so consistently. For some reason, all the three along with Sehwag are failing repeatedly. Look at the state of Srilankan cricket. With no Murali around and Jayawardene and Sangakkara also proving inconsistent, Srilankan cricket is in shambles. A lot of people are going to do a lot of analysis on the current state of Indian cricket but the analysis so far I have seen including that of batting greats like Gavaskar and Chappel have not convinced me. I suspect that the dressing room atmosphere is a little negative at this moment but, whatever it is, I still do not understand why we are performing so badly.
India certainly is facing a whitewash here in Australia. When you really look closely, the bowlers have not fared badly and the Ausie batsman used to pace and bounce should have fared much better. Where India has failed is not being able able to face the pace battery and Australia have exploited the pitch to their advantage. We have excellent talent when playing on slower pitches for which the sub continent is notorious for and 1 frustrated Aussie commentator used the words s***t heaps to describe them. It will be a safe assumption to make that India will never be able to take the fight to overseas destinations unless they bite the bullet and realise that they need the next generation of cricketers to play in super fast pitches right in India. Has anyone in India the vision and the guts to prepare them and train the next crop of budding cricketers so that we can see a proper matched contest outside of the subcontinent some time in the future br/>
It is in the attitude,when some one fares well he is compared with God,when the same person fails,he is brought to dust.Its supraising this attitude has even got into the minds of the pros.The fact remains,these seniors brought us to this level.The whole team looks out of form,can't blame just the seniors.It has happened before and it has happened now,and it happens to all not just Indian team!They are professionals,but humans too.Give them a break,we will get our chance to cheerup again.
They are stalwarts still, but on our slower wickets! On faster tracks, the reflexes do slow down with age. It is like Pete Smapras, now 39, taking on Joker with a much younger pair of legs! I remember how a well acclaimed World War l vetaran's tactics came a cropper in WW ll, as technology had changed and he was almost eighty years old!Sadly, we do not have players with ready with experience to take on now when the big three quit the scene. On top, Sehwag's techinique was exposed; he was all at sea when we needed him to unsettle the Aussies. The simple lesson is : we are not the same every few years, even our attitudes change over time. We need to be nimble and Aussies are making merry at our cost; it is our lack of foresight.
Finally, a balanced article that doesn't emotionally hurl blame on the Indian batsmen. One aspect that I haven't seen much discussion on is if the these Aussie tracks have seamed a lot more than in previous tours where there was bounce but not that much seam movement except in the first few sessions. It just appears that the Indian batsmen and for that matter Australian batsmen have struggled with the movement which suggests that unless Indian bowlers bowled as well as the Australians, India were going to be in trouble. Depending on what kind of pitch we will find in Adelaide, it will help answer how much the extra grass affected the Indian batting. Regardless, one has to admire Sachin Tendulkar who seems to be the only batsman who seems to be consistently at ease on these trying tracks. It is a measure of his class, no doubt. Similarly, Zaheer has been the standout Indian bowler as he has troubled all the Australian batsmen with his guile and skill.
All of us fail to measure up sometime or other. However, disregard for
the game -- reckless fanning of the willow with total abandon and poor
decisions are something else. How could they drop Ravi Ashwin when he
was contributing as a batsman the one department that needed strengthening. In their infinite wisdom they replaced a strong tail order batsman with a newbie. BCCI is a political organization Krish and his cronies must be booted first.Sehwag should perhaps come in at 5. Rahul is anyway facing the 10th ball in the Innings ...why not the first ball. That way others in the line up will fare better. Sehwag can come in at 5 and start swinging the bat with eyes closed. The irony is these guys get paid to do what they have done.
Seniors like Laxman,Dravid have to retire on their own.BCCI must bring local cricket pitches to international standards so that Indian cricketers are at home while playing on bouncing pitches like those at WACA particularly and others in general.I noticed Indians having trouble handling a ball coming at a shoulder level.Only Tendulkar is able to send it over the head of wicket keeper for a four.
as an Australian ,i've always admired Tendulkar's,Laxman's and Dravid 's batting and good sportsmanship..However i did feel on watching them recently that they seem to be "going gently into the night"..Perhaps its time for good grace to be replaced by agression and ego..Which in its self would be a cause for some sadness.
Batting: Our seniors have aged and are not the same anymore. When the bowling crosses a certain threshold in quality (pace, length, swing & bounce) they don't have answers. This is particularly true for Gambhir, Sehwag & Laxman. Gambhir & Sehwag do not have the temperament to graft their way through. Laxman has aged. We need to bring in youngsters & mentor them through. Keep Sehwag may be, but bring a younger player at the other end and mentor him through. Then we keep Dravid and Tendulkar, and groom in one more youngster (Rohit or Suresh - may be Rohit) in place of Laxman. The youngsters can be mentored through one or two series. Similarly in 2013/14, between Dravid and Tendulkar they need to decide as to who will be dropped. Given the weight of the contributions of the seniors this decision should stem from then rather than they being dropped. Anil Kumble set a sterling example by stepping down when he knew that the magic was gone.Bowling: Need to have 2 pace bowlers and 2 spinners of real quality. May be at a Perth we need 3 pacers and 1 spinner. The hallmark for a pacer is line, length and the angles. The youngsters need to learn from Zaheer. We need to recognize that unless the length and the angles are mastered at the pace that we are able to bowl (135 to 145 MPH) we are not going to rattle the stumps on pace alone.
Between Ashwin and Ojha we have a future. We need to bring one more spinner into the mix for India and even look at 1+3. Spinners will mature with age, and we need to give Ojha and Ashwin that continuous run. The two need to start bowling spells in tandem - working their strategies to choke the batsmen in unresponsive surfaces, and under the right conditions get them by flight, dip, spin and bounce.
The root cause of the batting failure is the pathetic show of the opening batsmen. In six innings, the highest stand has been a mere 24. For all practical purposes, Dravid and Tendulkar have been opening the innings. Due to the miserable performance of the openers, every other batsman is literally batting out of position. Laxman is no doubt in poor form. But he is a genuine number 5 or 6. In this series he has been forced to bat when the ball is still relatively new against fresh fast bowlers. Somebody needs to explain the basic duty of an opener to our batting pair. They need not score many runs but at the very least they should try to stay put and see the shine off the new ball. Instead, they have been exposing the middle order within the first few minutes of every innings.
Very discouraging results. Cannot believe this happening to India! This game has got into our blood- cannot stop following even though I am disappointed and this is the case of every Indian fan. Let us hope the actions taken are constructive and soon prove that India is still the super-power of cricket.
This has always been the fact, but we had our times with some players who have performed exceptionally well abroad and won us matches and series also. Since they are at the end of their career and some of them have retired, there is very little hope and since today's young players are more of T20 type players than Test tyep players including our captain.
Please Email the Editor