The euphoria that swept through the cricket loving minds of the nation after India’s historic win at Lord’s has changed to grave disappointment after terrible losses at Southampton and Manchester. Team England was going through a very lean phase when India reached that country to play a very rare 5 test series. Their captain Alistair Cook, once a prolific batsman, was staring down the barrel. The ominous bowling duo of James Anderson and Stuart Broad were far from their best. Retirement of Graeme Swann left the team high and dry without a quality spinner. Mr. Dependable of the English team, Ian Bell was almost looking like he forgot how to play long innings in a test match. Matt Prior, the daring keeper-batsman was not in his original self either. However at Southampton, everything changed for England and there was a remarkable revival, which saw Cook and Bell getting back their form, Anderson and Broad getting back to their best, part-timer Moeen Ali effectively taking the place left vacant by Swann of an attacking spinner, Jos Buttler, who replaced Prior, batting with great purpose and intention and Gary Ballance continuing with his supreme form, some calling it the “form of his life time.”
In the meantime from the pinnacle of pride at Lord’s, India stooped down to a nadir of ignominy at Old Trafford. If the injury to the hero of Lord’s Ishant Sharma was not enough of a blow to the Indians, they were humiliated in the Anderson-Jadeja row. When it was prudent to report the incident to ICC, India and its captain MS Dhoni took the issue to ludicrous levels even after the judge made the decision that neither Anderson nor Jadeja was guilty in the incident. By taking the issue too far, Dhoni was only distracting himself and his team from their real focus. The incident should have reached its closure once the judge had made the decision and India and its young players, most of them playing their first test series in England, should have re-focussed their attention to the test match.
Other than Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, and to some extend captain Dhoni, no other player in the Indian squad seems to have got things right in England till now. Of course there were some flashes of brilliance from Murali Vijay and Ajinkya Rahane at Trent Bridge and Lord’s, but they too seem to have lost the touch as they reached Southampton and then Manchester. Comeback man Gautam Gambhir didn’t fire in his comeback game at Old Trafford and was dismissed cheaply in both innings. His penchant for fishing deliveries landing around off stump and swinging away seems to be intact. Cheteshwar Pujara, the worthy successor of the great Rahul Dravid, seems all at sea in England. The technically sound Saurashtrian has hit a lean patch and is finding unwonted ways of getting out, not to mention the many wrong decisions that went against him. Virat Kohli, inarguably the best batsman in the present Indian line-up, finds balls in that corridor of uncertainty too hot to handle. By now his inability to come out of that technical flaw of edging balls outside off stump would be troubling him big time.
If there is one Indian batsman who has been consistent in the whole series then that is MS Dhoni. Though the Indian captain is not known for his batting prowess against a moving red cherry, he made some useful contributions in the middle order. However his wicket keeping in the series leaves much to be desired. Many an outside edge has escaped between him and the first slip, mostly because of his failure to go for the catches by diving to his right.
Except for his quick fire half century at Lord’s, Ravindra Jadeja has been an abject failure in the series. He may have many triple centuries in domestic cricket, but he is inchoate while playing a moving ball in conditions as in England. His slow left arm bowling can at best be described as average. Ravi Ashwin, the more experienced among the two spinners, bowled just 14 overs in the Manchester test match. Dhoni doesn’t have a lot of confidence in him – the reason why he was warming the benches in the first three matches. Even when he is asked to bowl, Dhoni puts defensive field for him and asks him to bowl a defensive line. Pankaj Singh, a late bloomer in Indian cricket, lacks the incisiveness required at the higher levels of cricket and hence toiled hard for wickets. Only comfort being Varun Aaron – with his pace, he appears to be on the track, at least for now.
May be it is unwise for us to criticise this team so early for their lack of results. May be it is because we expected a lot more from this young team. It is not always easy to fill in the shoes of the stalwarts like Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag and Ganguly, the fabulous five of Indian cricket. It is not easy either to match the quality of Kumble, Harbhajan and Zaheer. Those who were pretty vocal for the forceful removal of the aforementioned greats, to replace them with the youngsters, should show more patience.
The Oval beckons India to get their act together and salvage the pride and the test series. 15 August is a remarkable day for an Indian team to start a fight to win a test match against the English. The freedom fighters of this great nation had fought for regaining the pride of the nation and its inhabitants; Dhoni and Co. would also be fighting on a different pitch tomorrow almost for the same purpose – to regain some lost pride.
(This piece first appeared in the cricket website Cric News Guru. You can find that original article under the heading OPINION: Some pride left to salvage at The Oval from that website.)
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