Sydney Suffering

A lot was expected of the Indian team in the second test match at SCG. A historic venue celebrating its 100th test match, a venue which Sachin rates as his own ground and the close contest in the previous encounter pointed in a very intense contest. In reality it was a completely one sided contest with the India team throwing in the towel in the first session itself.

Once the Indians frittered away the advantage of winning the toss, they had very little time to recover. We could get to a decent enough total thanks to some rearguard action from Dhoni and Ashwin. Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman all fell in a heap and I would say Tendulkar too. Because a 40 from Sachin is below par. To their credit, Zaheer Khan produced a brilliant spell to have the Aussies down to 3/39. Then as Ponting walked in, MSD made that inexplicable change to bring on Ishant and lost the momentum. The Indians, would like to forget the next three days because there was no respite from free scoring. Ponting, Clarke and Hussey scored runs as if they were playing against a school team. Each one of them got a century and Clarke scored a triple.

There are only two ways to look at a score in excess of 600. Either the wicket has eased out and therefore it is easy to score runs or the bowling/field placements were mediocre and hence the team scored freely. In this case it was the latter. When the Indians came to bat, the usual service was resumed. Aussie quickies, though short on experience, produced impeccable line and length to get the famous batting line up rattled. None scored a century and that tells the story.

I think the Indian cricketers are spoilt with flat docile wickets at home and a surplus of ODIs and T20s. These matches make the players and the board rich, but spoil the game. No batsman is willing to stay longer at the crease and frustrate the bowlers. On the contrary, the Aussies throttled the boundaries and forced the Indian batters to take risks. These matches also make the captains a bit defensive, because the success lies in restricting runs rather than claiming wickets. So I agree wholeheartedly when my friend says that Dhoni plays a test match like five ODIs. He lacks the skills that Kumble or Strauss has. Dhoni does not plot a downfall, he waits for it happen. He does not go for the kill when we have the upper hand, but takes his foot off the pedal. Because he is happy containing the opposition than getting it over with.

Finally, I also got feedback that I am being too soft on the famous four. But hasn’t enough been written about them already? They are under the gun and if they want their reputations to stay good, they have to deliver in the next two games.