Does it really matter ?

Batting woes sans Dravid, Brainless Bowling & Sehwag's thrust !!

India lost to Australia in their virtual Quarter-final match at Mohali by 6 wickets... Despite a decent batting effort on a pitch that wasn't easy to bat on...a scrappy 50 by Sehwag and a Dravid fifty, played the way a batsman should under the conditions...but the minute Dravid got out...India's batting problems reappeared out of nowhere. India lost the match between the 36th and 43rd over of their batting, when they should have started to accelerate...instead Brett Lee bowls a wicket maiden in the 43rd. Pathan maybe could have come in ahead of Raina, who was clearly struggling to take a single...and got out on the first real aggressive shot he played.

The bowling was disgraceful...it makes you wonder if the Indian bowlers were actually watching the game when McGrath was bowling to Tendulkar...pitching the ball up is the best option. The Indian pacers are around McGrath's pace and they should have done the same keep the ball up instead of trying to bounce the batsman out...the Aussies were struggling on the few times when the ball was kept up...that's how Ponting got out...to a spectacular catch by Tendulkar in the slips.

Dravid's captaincy is also not up to the mark...he seems to be waiting for something to happen instead of trying to make it happen...which should be how he has to work. The fielding also needs to be improved...the one instance that stands out was when...Munaf Patel a 23 year old lad was applauded by all for restricting the Aussies to a single at square leg...after having conceded a couple on the previous ball. Patel has to do a lot of sprinting exercises and improve his throw as well...It doesn't augur well, when your pace bowler has to work on his throw. Also Mongia bowling as many overs as he did was baffling...he wasn't getting any turn off the wicket...did not look like taking a wicket either...why was he on for so long?

Sehwag...the batsman who is supposedly the thrust to India's batting is also a paradox. As an opener, he averages around 33, which is to say the least "awful"...so he has a strike rate of around 95...that is useless if you score 20 in 22 balls at the start of the innings. He has to be much more disciplined...that is something that he seems to lack completely. Surely he needs to be more consistent to be called a professional cricketer...a fifty or hundred once in around 4 games is the benchmark, whereas Sehwag has one is every 5.3 games as against Sachin who has one in 3.2 games, Dravid one in 3.35 and Ganguly one in 3.3 games. So he better get more consistent and stop playing like a part time opener/pinch hitter.

All this seems to indicate that Indian cricket has a lot to worry about going into the very arduous tour to South Africa and the World Cup next year.

Hope Greg, Rahul and he boys pull up their socks and get professional and more importantly objective about their performance and start acting like they are professionals. The fans will surely support them...but they need to act like they appreciate the support!

posted by Sreedhar @ Monday, October 30, 2006