Silly M(a)id-on

Why would you choose to bowl first on a seam-friendly track and then open with your spinners twice in a row?

Are they batsmen, are they bowlers, are they in the team to just make up the numbers, does the captain not like the other players warming the benches? Why were Jadeja and Pathan playing against WI after repeated failures?

Were these mistakes repeated just so that the stubborn captain could try and prove that his tactics and team selections were actually a work of genius, and just did not work in the match against Australia for some reason? Is this one of the reasons why we are almost out of the tournament??

Why…why…why would the batsmen in a team, who are supposed to be “the strength of the team” no less, not even try and apply themselves when chasing a decent score? Twice in a row?

Screw you Men In Blue. Pfft. I’ll follow the girls instead. You would do well to take some inspiration from them yourselves. Two S/F appearances in two T20 WCs. (Dear reader, did you see what the girls did to SL today, yet?

Btw, the senior members of the One day team have rebelled big time against BCCI. They can’t stand playing SL anymore, so they’ve pulled out of the Triangular tournament in Zimbabwe altogether. I know. I know. The BCCI is trying to avoid this scandal by saying stuff like “We are resting the seniors” etc. But trust me. That’s all boo-hockey. Revolt is in the air.

Giving due respect to the “Steyn” gun, I present my thoughts on the past, present and future of this Test series in “bullet” points –

Nagpur

• Yeah yeah, Steyn was great..blah blah blah..line and length, and oh the pace…yada, yada, yada. Someday, I will appreciate that bowling performance more than I do right now. Ditto for Kallis and Amla. (P.S. In my last post, when I said that it would be great to see a Sehwag/Gambhir vs Morkel/Steyn, I meant I wanted to see a lovely contest where we could go all “ooh..aah..lovely bowling” for the first 20 overs, after which, normal service would resume and we would proceed to the demolition bit. Obviously, Steyn thought otherwise…)

• Mixed feelings regarding India’s injury woes. It could have been different if India wasn’t missing the middle-order mainstays. On the other hand, would it really have been any different, considering how unstoppable Steyn was? (While we are on injuries, I wonder why Harbhajan Singh never gets injured? :-/)

• The law of averages finally caught up with GG and MSD. 1^st real failure for GG in approx 11 test matches. And 1^st loss for Team India under MSD after 11 matches. That says something, huh! Too bad it had to happen now.

• Selection..uff…the lesser said the better!

Present

• THIS IS NOT DOOMSDAY. It’s ok. We lost. Rather badly, I agree. But it is ok. It doesn’t mean that we are suddenly not worthy of the #1 spot we hold (and hopefully will continue to hold). We lost to a very close #2 ranked team. Who, incidentally, just about managed to draw their “home” series with a team ranked #5. So if anything, this should just reinforce the fact that there is no clear “best” team right now. Just a bunch of very good ones, who will play “pass the parcel” with the coveted top rank based on who plays better when and against who. Until one of them finds the consistency synonymous with the Aussies of yore.

• I hope Laxman and Sreesanth are truly fit and not just hoping to somehow manage through the test. Playing XI – Sehwag, Gambhir, Vijay, Sachin, Laxman/Raina, Badri, Dhoni, Mishra, Bhajji, Zak, Ishant/Sreesanth? Barring any unforeseen injuries?

Kolkata

• The Test Of Love begins on Valentine’s Day. Aren’t you glad that it is going to be at Eden Gardens, a ground we hold great memories of? A ground we love? (Geddit? Test of Love…ground we love??)
• BCCI allegedly wants a dustbowl for Eden Gardens, and I say bring it on! Everyone plays to their strength right? And spin, apparently, is ours. Our batsmen can play it, and our bowlers can bowl it (er…right?).
• There is something about Eden Gardens that does something to Bhajji and makes him capable of taking more than 0 wickets. I checked.
• Just one piece of advice. India will do well to keep in check their fielding lapses. It didn’t matter that much against SL and B’desh, coz they were as awful as us. SA is a different league. (Visions of Saffers flying all over the field…suddenly appearing out of nowhere…)
• India will win this one. And it is going to be better than 2001. Think positive, be optimistic!

I cannot make sense of selecting M Vijay for the final test. Aakash Chopra might have been a better choice in my opinion since he has played in a few test matches before. Somehow this selection reeks of provincialism, which is not something I expected from Srikkanth. And now Vijay is in the ODI squad too? After playing just 20 List A matches? Sounds like the selectors are trying to justify Vijay’s Test selection as a well thought out plan and not just a hurried decision. Unfair on Badri, who I think deserved at least one more chance in the ODIs.