Didn’t I tell you? These guys are not good abroad...

Many of you die hard Indian fans must be very disappointed now. I already hear some intuitive voices from the distance “Didn’t I tell you? These guys are not good abroad” Well, I don’t blame these voices as the past demons are too hard to forget.

Yeah I’m little disappointed that India could not save the test match, if not winning it. However I’m proud of the positives. It is not way back when we watched the Indian teams go down badly and test match finish inside 3 days at the start of a series. Even today, despite the No.1 tag, the result remains the same. But the key difference is we took the game almost to the end of fifth day’s play and the opposition had to earn the victory.

In fact, there were few brief moments when India managed a come back from nowhere to create false hopes of drawing the first blood. Ishant firing on fourth day morning almost reminded Javagal Srinath’s performance against South Africa at Ahmedabad. I for a while truly felt the lunch break came at the most opportune time to give him the deserved break only to come back fresh to finish the formality. Then India chasing a total of 325 is perfect script for the numero uno. Surprisingly he was put into attack only after 40 minutes and the commentators clarified the move to avoid a possible suspension of Dhoni on the grounds of slow over rate. Not so convincing, still under these circumstances Dhoni’s presence for the entire length of series matters most over anything else.

So, did India play like a No.1 side?

It is really a tough question to answer considering the expectation of a No.1 side is to only win matches and anything short of victory warrants condemnation.

Being sportive man myself, I strongly believe the philosophy “Victory and defeat are part and parcel of life. Someday you win, someday you lose, but what matters is how you fight each battle”. These ratings are basically created for the purpose of encouragement and motivation and stand no relevance to the context of the match. I know you don’t buy me. Let me present it in a different perspective. Jacques Kallis stands No.1 in the ICC Test Rankings. Sachin Tendulkar stands No.4 only after Trott and Sangakara. Now would you really buy Kallis, Trott and Sangakara are better cricketers than Tendulkar? I know you already made mockery of the rankings, didn’t you? So you really think India losing a test match bears any relevance to the side’s status.

To answer the first question from a cricketing standpoint, when the spearhead went down early in the first innings Praveen Kumar stood up. The captain who is known for keeping and batting chose to shoulder the responsibility with the ball too. The old pro after half decade put his hands behind the gloves on this occasion. In the second innings Ishant Sharma lifted his bowling to a different notch. When Gambir went down due to injury, the Wall once again stepped into open the innings, Laxman pushed to No.3, Gambir came at No.4 while Tendulkar walked at No.5. Almost every batsman batted at unusual position for the sake of the team and still did their best. After all this, do you really think India did not play like a champion side?

If any of you question what big deal it is to bat outside the positions for these seasoned pros?

Try sitting in different desk at work for a day, try a new computer, may be a new video game or even a new cell phone the least. All you workaholics, computer pros, video game maniacs, cell phone geeks soon realize you need little more time to settle down. So when everyone deserves this time, why not the Indian team?

If India is slow starter abroad so are the other cricket nations when they visit India. When we fail, we expect to be encouraged and motivated, while our countrymen fail we don’t reciprocate the same wisdom. Are we hypocrites? Don’t you think it is our responsibility as a fan to mature as well?

Our boys are wonderful talent and they are not used to defeats. This loss will hurt them dearly and I’ve no doubts they will come back strongly so as you get the opportunity to beat your chest proud.

In few weeks from now, you will hear the voices “Didn’t I tell you? See... how they came back and won the series!!!”

Dinesh

Cricket Lover