India has lost the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2011 barely a test match and 2 days into the second one, 10 days into a test series scheduled to be played just over a month including 4 test matches.
I don't even know what I would have done if by some weird miracle I see myself in the board room of the BCCI in a post-series meeting looking for suggestions because quite frankly, I don't know what questions to ask. I am tired and exhausted.
The best possible outcome save a miracle in this test match can only be a loss for India after a good long fight. Some analysts say the entire series was lost in the 1st and 2nd sessions of the 2nd day's play at the SCG when the Indian pacers, instead of steaming in and strangulating the Aussie batsmen for width, kept bowling clueless half volleys and short pitched throw downs to set batsmen of international repute albeit one of them is probably trying to answer more questions than a literature graduate in an exam of molecular cell biology.
This opportunity( the series) was touted to be India's best chance and Australia's sternest test. Now, barely 7 days worth of play into a potential 20 day contest, India is not just staring down the barrel, it has mostly arranged for its own coffin to be lowered into each of Australia's test venues with most of the nails already wedged in tight by its own premier batsmen.
I might be found with a huge foot up my mouth for this might seem too premature a time to speak of the outcome of the series so early on, but the current series looks to be headed down the exact same road as that of the recent England tour and I really cannot be blamed for sounding cynical as I too am an ardent and passionate fan of Indian cricket.
I have never switched off my television once Sachin got out though. I have always believed our team has had the ability to come out of tough situations with admirable displays of character because I know and I've seen it happen.
1999 Australia was expected. Although painful defeat seemed inevitable, we all pushed and cheered, wiping our eyes of the tears of disappointment. 2007 was tough but good cricket though. Defeat is not unacceptable for some of us cricket lovers. Shit happens, we get it. 2011 England was an aberration perhaps.
We all watched haplessly as day after day after day, India sank from one low to the other with just one man actually looking like he was aware of the grievousness of a test match resulting in a loss while the entire team gasped for breath by a colossal powerhouse of a team as if an inmate being water-boarded by a ruthless warden at Abu Ghraib.
Ok. We had our front line bowler missing after 8 overs into the 1st test hurting either his hamstring or knee( am not sure which, it didn't matter. Zaheer was in no condition to play a test match against possibly the best English team in a long time and his waist clearly gave away that he'd had one ice cream too many in the lead up to the series), an alleged front line spinner withdrew with an abdomen strain, a formidable yet struggling opener knocking himself out cold with a Hemorrhage while another in the form of Sehwag being called in a measure of hopeless desperation, gifting the English a golden pair in his first test back.
We were short on practice it was said. We only got one warm up match before the test series commenced. Perhaps we needed a warm up 4 match test series before the actual test series just to get the players accustomed to the environment and the pitches. We were coming fresh off world cup glory and a lengthy and tiring IPL season. Down with the T20 format, cries were heard.
Once could be an aberration, twice an emerging trend . 2011 Australia is 'undigestible'. A possible 6th loss in its 6th outing away from the subcontinent is not just pitiful but tragic for a team ranked No.1 in the world not longer than 8 months back.
This time everybody got what they wanted.The batting line up was picture perfect. Except Gambhir, everyone was riding on success with Sehwag returning fresh from a belligerent 219 against an admittedly weaker bowling attack but a double century in any international match is bound to pump you up with good adrenaline and confidence if not the temperament to see the new ball through the 1st half hour at least.
Virat and Rohit Sharma seemed to be jostling healthily for a No.6 spot in the batting and Umesh Yadav picked himself on the tour on the back of impressive performances back home and on his ability to consistently hit close to 145 on the gun. R Ashwin had probably finished Harbajhan Singh's test career for good at 98 tests with a century and 22 wickets in his debut series back home including two 5-fors.
The test specialists arrived well before time, taking down throw downs with every possible gadget invented by cricket pundits using all kinds of balls from tennis, plastic, wet leather in short run up, half pitch and god knows what else. Two warm up matches were arranged this time around both of which saw the participation of all players of the squad that boarded the plane from India. It was all good.
At least it looked all good till it all went bad in the same manner we've come to be so used to watching collapses and hapless leather chases every time we switch on our TV sets in the morning. The only batsman who's looked like he still owns the world is Tendulkar but with wickets crumbling at the other end like dried leaves off a tree on a chilly autumn morning, he too invariably ends up either mis-driving to gully or dragging one on to his stumps attempting expansive drives with valiant yet vain intentions of merely trying to keep the scoreboard ticking along.
I am not trying to take credit away from the infallible line and length maintained with alarmingly consistency by the Aussie pacers. It's not ferocious fast bowling. It is effective fast bowling and consistently effective fast bowling at text book lengths usually sounds the death knell for edgy top order batsmen trying to find answers to innumerable questions, more often than not.
The most important aspect of this potentially humiliating loss is not the manner in which it seems to be headed to transpire but the number of times acclaimed batsmen of impeccable service records have proved fodder for the same strategy executed by the opposition time and again. Why have we stopped adapting? What is it that we're lacking in? We seem to have everything. We have won test matches in more difficult conditions with the same men from more precarious scenarios.
Have the stakes dwindled? What has made some of the men care lesser? And if they still care as much, what else needs to be done for fortune to favour the allegedly brave? At the end of the English tour, we were all bursting with solutions and suggestions. We knew heads needed to roll. We knew mostly whose too. This time I stare at the television screen and I don't even have a scapegoat in the form of a poster of Sharad Pawar, a Shashank Manohar or an N Srinivasan to scream at.
The IPL is Scott-free too. It had nothing to do with this series whatsoever. If anything, with so much cricket in all three formats being played, everyone is so off T20 mode that its hard to believe IPL 2011 was held only 7 months back.
I don't know whom I would have pretended to call to my fictitious board room office and scream at for letting me down because I loved him and expected from him so much as a fight. I still love the squad. I just don't know what to expect out of them anymore.
My feelings at this time can be mildly compared to that of a desolate father holding his son's report card and not knowing whether caning or 'giving space' is the ideal way to tackle the poor showing. I take so much pride and a sense of belonging with the Indian team because, I, like so many others have also uprooted an invisible stump off the ground and run around the corridor at home imagining myself to be soaked in the same champagne as that of my heroes, every time Dravid hit his final boundary at Adelaide to win us a test or Yuvraj holding Tendulkar aloft in his arms after the Chennai test.
Where, I have believed that Anil Kumble sat on my shoulder too when he waved his final good bye. Where, when Sachin hits a ton; takes off his helmet, looks skyward and waves, I have always believed he's smiling and waving his bat at me too. I have cried with so many others when Rahul Dravid almost lost his place in the test squad at the back of two poor years. My heart has skipped beats at every one of Sachin's straight drives and also at the sound of the bails dislodging every time an India batsman is merely at the crease. Ganguly took off his shirt at Lord's to make a statement on my behalf too.
I don't personally care of Sachin's "100th 100". I frankly do not know what else it stands for but another invented milestone for the blood thirsty media to make more money out of and apply unnecessary pressure upon a legend trying to win his one away series against his most favorite opposition for his team. Its not like the close to two dozen 90s he's hit in his international career stand for anything less or that his 97 against Pakistan in the 2003 world cup was any less important than his 200* against SA at Gwalior.
What I do care for is to see him smile at the end with the result of the test series reading in India's favour. I care for Dravid to scream at the end of a test match off a cover drive and hug his partner and for the mates to jump over them in a huddle and cry in ecstasy. I don't mind crying in the despair of loss too. But I'd rather take the frustration of losing a closely contested match between equal opponents that could have gone either way than watching in horror, undisputed surrender. All I have ever hoped for is for us to give more shit than we appear to be giving.
I am not really privy to the core of the functioning of the BCCI and the recruitment processes it follows in order to ensure that the resources that are allocated not just justify the budgets it sanctions at the commencement stage of any particular term but also raises the quality of cricketers that are churned out through its massive gates. Every time, the BCCI provides convenient fodder while this time around, except the continued trust bestowed on Gautam Gambhir, no other reason comes to mind to blame failures on it either.
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| Gautam Gambhir has more than outlived all his lives © AFP |
I am not sure what's going to happen exactly in the 2 tests to follow but to start off, some changes need to be brought in. Gautam Gambhir has got to leave. Even if he hits something fighting in the 2nd innings, he has more than run his time.
Rahane and Rohit Sharma should both be given chances instead of Gambhir and Kohli as Kohli too has failed in 3 consecutive away test series since debut. There is only so much faith that can be bequeathed. If nothing, at least Gambhir needs to shift down the order with Dravid's magnanimity in gamesmanship again being called into service.
Inspite of all these changes, unless there's intent to fight and kill , shuffling batting orders can't fetch you test match victories at world class stadia against unforgiving oppositions.
India needs to at least be willing to put up a squabble. Victory, as usual, seems a distant dream.
