Needed less rhetoric, more application

Mohinder Singh Dhoni, the Indian Captain, has said it all. At various times, on different occasions, he has been forced to admit that the batting failed, the bowling was weak and that the fielding was poor.

His variation of the theme raises an important and a pertinent query. If a team has a suspect batting line-up, a weak bowling attack and a generally deplorable fielding attitude then what is it doing playing a professional team like Australia?

Dhoni certainly will be found wanting on this issue. India’s performance against the touring Australian team in the recently concluded series has laid open the barrenness of ability among the Indian team as a whole. And that too a team which had worked itself to lay claim to the title of the top combination of one-day cricket in the World after victories over Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and once against Australia in their own backyard. All that was needed was a win over South Africa but more importantly over Australia in the seven match series at home.

At the end of the recent series what became obvious was that India was certainly high but on rhetoric and suspiciously vulnerable on nearly all aspect of the game. What was actually proved was the Australia, despite having a long list of casualties was still good enough to beat India mainly because the general standard of the game in the country was very good. At the same time it exposed the fact that India for all the noise it made was still learning the game and lacked among other things application.

It proved for the nth time that Australia’s state players were nearly all very talented and only a step away from the standards required in an international competition. Paradoxically it was proved that India’s top players had all reputations which faltered at the first sign of tough competition.

Having said all this I would like to stick my neck out and state categorically that this was one time when India had a great chance of beating Australia. The main weakness was in bowling and certainly in fielding but I thought that the batsmen would make more then amends to neutralize an Australian advantage on reputation aggravated by a long injury list. Unfortunately the batsman surrendered the initiative.

The next step is to ensure that Sri Lanka, as tough a team as ever, is not allowed to brow beat the Indian team. Remedial measures must be taken but wisely. And what is more important than winning and losing is the need to keep one’s mouth shut. There is far too much boasting done than deeds from the Indian camp.

- Asian Tribune -