England deservedly won the series quite convincingly and dethroned India from the No. 1 spot in Test cricket rankings. I think everyone was kind of expecting this result but the manner in which the Indian team surrendered was beyond belief. There was no fight whatsoever to try to retain the ranking by squaring the series. The bowling was pedestrian, the batting was a joke and fielding was worse than a club side. When Sourav Ganguly said that he has not seen an Indian unit so bad in the past 10 years, I think everyone would agree with that assessment.
On a green top, the ball was expected to move a lot and statistically Strauss was due to win a toss. He immediately put the Indians in, and from then on it was a one way story. India had made a big deal of Sehweag’s return to the test side after an injury and he was being looked at as the Messiah who would pull this side out of their miseries. His contribution to the test match was exactly two deliveries; he got a Golden Duck pair. This Indian unit has not scored more than 300 runs on this tour and this test match was no exception. The batting of MSD was also more out of frustration than planned attack I thought. In the end with the bowling line up we have, a score of 224 was nothing.
England came out with a game plan and the firm of Strauss and Cook almost took them past the Indian total. Cook played a fabulous innings and showed how to build an innings as an opener. He fell 6 runs short of a well deserved triple hundred. Almost everyone scored freely and exposed the shallowness of the Indian bowling attack. We also dropped about half dozen catches, which did not help. At one stage, it looked like England could have gone and scored a thousand runs. Fortunately, Strauss declared at 710/7, as soon as Cook got out.
That left us to defend two days and a session to salvage a draw. A win was completely out of the equation. Sehwag perished on the 3rd ball of the innings and one must feel sorry for Rahul Dravid who has clearly stated his reluctance to open an innings but gets called out in the first over. Sehwag is a senior player and he cannot act as if he has no brains between his ears. The situation called for grafting an innings and not tonking the attack. The rest of the batting collapsed in a heap on the fourth day and only some lusty hitting in the end could ensure that we crossed 200. The lack of thinking was clearly visible when the Indians despite having the DRS in play, did not contest the appeal against Dravid; who looked like the only one who could rescue.
This team and the body language now shows signs that are not very encouraging for an Indian fan. The team hardly talks to each other on the field, there is no encouragement and above all everyone seems to be going through motions and hoping that this tour will get over. There are some serious questions being asked and the team is coming short on answers. The batting is good on dead wickets in the sub-continent. The new generation lacks the patience and the temperament to graft a test match innings. They are susceptible against moving and short-pitched bowling. We need to have players like Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Virat Kohli etc. play in the county circuit to gain some experience. The bowling lacks penetration. We need an attack that can take 20 wickets. Need a tear away fast bowler and a couple of quality spinners to achieve that. Bhajji and Zaheer are history. Mishra bowls more no balls than a fast bowler and leaks runs by the fifties. The captain needs to wake up and start driving these changes. It will be very sad if this defeat is considered as another day in the park and not given its rightful dues. First we need to arrest further sliding down the ladder and then start pushing up. It is a hard road ahead.
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