When the Indians lined up for the national anthem at the wanderers for their last group stage match against the West Indies ,40 km away at Centurion Tim Paine crashed an Umer Gul delivery to the boundary.But after 36 overs Indian had bundled out the West Indies for a mere 130,whereas the Australians were 187 for 8 needing 19 runs from 25 deliveries.Pakistan were in with chance of defeating the Aussies and it also boosted the India's chances of making it to the semis.But Brett lee and Nathan hauritz's last ball scramble ensured their semifinal berth.India one the other hand lost early wickets of Gambhir and Dravid.Though Dinesh Karthik and Virat kohli held their nerves and consolidated a win a for India to end their campaign at a high.
So why did India were not able to cross the first hurdle of champions trophy.
Coming into the champions trophy after a win in the compaq cup it lost the services of phenomenal sehwag and talisman yuvraj singh.Sehwag's replacement,rather middle order replacement Rahul dravid,though got a half century was not at his fluent best.In 1996 when Rahul Dravid made his debut in singer cup and during his golden years of 1999-2003 maintained a strike rate of 60 odd and even 70 which was reasonably good at that time.The advent of T20 scoring rate increased and also in 50 overs scores of 300 became very common leading to increase in strike rate of most of the batsmen.but rahul dravid was stuck in the first gear.With talents like Rohit Sharma,Virat Kohli and S.Badrinath under the wings it will be better for Rahul to concentrate on his forte of test cricket
Due to the absence of Zaheer khan Indian bowling attack was the weak link.BUt the irony is,Nehra in for Zaheer was considered as the weak link and Ishant was expected to fill in Zaheer's gap ,but nehra proved the best Indian bowler and Ishant a shadow of himself.The first change bowlers like Parveen kumar,R.P.Singh were not able to exploit the conditions.Even harbhajan,s lack of form crumpled in attack.The only saving grace was amit mishra and he proved his credentials at the highest possible level.
Thirdly,you have to listen to your elders and probably the Indian players turned a deaf ear to coach Gary.If the Indians had listened to him they might have had a recharged and higher testosterone levels and might have caused a mayhem.Nevertheless Gary Kirsten is still the coach and he might have some new tricks under his sleeves for the upcoming home series against Australia.
1 comment:
I fully agree with Mr.Vineet's explainations regarding the early exit of the Indian team from the champion's trophy. The team is in a dire need of building a strong bench strength if it is to lay its claim to be tha number one team of the cricketing world.As far as the bowling is concernec it has been the headache of the team for many-many years. The bowler need to understand their responsibilty and play accordingly.There is not much scope for Gary to affect the players game as ultimately the players who have to perform.
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