Thursday 13 February 2014
Can India stop loosing streak by winning wellington test match vs New Zealand
In the recent past, India's overseas performance is as worst as it can ever be. Under MS Dhoni, the Indian team is going through its worst phase when it comes to winning test matches abroad. India have now lost more away Tests under Dhoni than any other captain. His win-loss ratio of 0.45, though, is much better than the captain he just went past, Mohammad Azharuddin. Rahul Dravid's 1.25 remains the best away win-loss ratio for an Indian captain.
Question is when will this humiliation stop for India cricket? Earlier MS Dhoni was excused, as the ageing players nearing their retirement were identified as main reason for India's disappointing performances in England and Australia. Now youngsters have replaced them and have shown bit of improvement, to be fair, especially in batting department. In particular Murali Vijay, Virat Kohli, and Cheteshwar Pujara have shown the stomach for fight and to play out the hostile pace bowling on especially prepared green wickets for Indian batsmen. But bowling hasn't shown any improvement and this is the department that should lift itself if India has to win test matches. Afterall, its 20 wickets that wins you a test match, no matter how well you batted.
In South Africa the performance of batsmen was commendable, especially when one consider that almost all the new batsmen were on their first outing in the rainbow nation and there was huge lack of experience in those conditions. Same could be said about certain bowlers as well, but where India got hurt was the ineffectiveness of experienced bowlers like Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, and Ravichandran Ashwin. India should have won the Johannesberg test, only if they had some reasonable bowlers. Not many teams get into such position of strength against South Africa, as India did.
The bowlers can take confidence from second innings of first test where they managed to bundle out New Zeland for just over a 100 run mark. Indian batsmen also put up great fight, although they ended up on loosing side with some major decisions not going their way. But they can't complain as they are the ones who are opposing DRS (Decision Review System) which could have saved them against the howlers. Umpires also seem to happy to give players out, on first instance, who are against their friend called DRS.
India will need a good start again from their opening batsmen. As I said before that Murali Vijay is making honest efforts, but he need to play a big inning and score some runs, as that is what matters in the end. India is a statistics mad country when it comes to cricket. Nobody remembers the fight, that opener did well to play off the new ball and took the shine off the ball, but they always talk in number of runs -especially centuries. Shikhar Dhawan, on the other hand, did manage to get monkey of his back a bit by scoring a classy 100. Virat kohli also looked determined, although he got out pulling a long hop. Sunil Gavaskar in his column pointed finger towards Kohli and ask him to take a mature approach rather than macho approach. Although, it looks a bit of overreaction and Virat Kohli is always been targeted for no reason for long time in Indian cricket despite giving some scintillating performances.
The most disappointing performers in indian cricket team are Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane. Both these players are continued to be promoted as 'talented players' by Mumbai lobby, but haven't shown any of that talent when playing for national team. Even yuvraj singh and VVS laxman, with their talent, were not given as much leeway as these tow have given, when it comes to performances in test match cricket. Obviously, double standards are continued to be practiced in Indian cricket. If India needs to stop the loosing streak and want to have wins rather than defeats against their name, they need to throw out non-performers, and need to back those who are real fighters. Ravindra Jadeja has shown himself to be one such fighter.
India also needs a better captaincy, a better leader. Sometimes it appears that there is too much talent on disposal of MS Dhoni, but to show the world that he has derived some special strategies, he makes the mockery of the game and his resources.
Hopefully India will win the second and final test match against New Zealand and come back with some confidence in hand before the start of Asia Cup.
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| Can MS Dhoni win one overseas test for India? |
Question is when will this humiliation stop for India cricket? Earlier MS Dhoni was excused, as the ageing players nearing their retirement were identified as main reason for India's disappointing performances in England and Australia. Now youngsters have replaced them and have shown bit of improvement, to be fair, especially in batting department. In particular Murali Vijay, Virat Kohli, and Cheteshwar Pujara have shown the stomach for fight and to play out the hostile pace bowling on especially prepared green wickets for Indian batsmen. But bowling hasn't shown any improvement and this is the department that should lift itself if India has to win test matches. Afterall, its 20 wickets that wins you a test match, no matter how well you batted.
In South Africa the performance of batsmen was commendable, especially when one consider that almost all the new batsmen were on their first outing in the rainbow nation and there was huge lack of experience in those conditions. Same could be said about certain bowlers as well, but where India got hurt was the ineffectiveness of experienced bowlers like Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, and Ravichandran Ashwin. India should have won the Johannesberg test, only if they had some reasonable bowlers. Not many teams get into such position of strength against South Africa, as India did.
The bowlers can take confidence from second innings of first test where they managed to bundle out New Zeland for just over a 100 run mark. Indian batsmen also put up great fight, although they ended up on loosing side with some major decisions not going their way. But they can't complain as they are the ones who are opposing DRS (Decision Review System) which could have saved them against the howlers. Umpires also seem to happy to give players out, on first instance, who are against their friend called DRS.
India will need a good start again from their opening batsmen. As I said before that Murali Vijay is making honest efforts, but he need to play a big inning and score some runs, as that is what matters in the end. India is a statistics mad country when it comes to cricket. Nobody remembers the fight, that opener did well to play off the new ball and took the shine off the ball, but they always talk in number of runs -especially centuries. Shikhar Dhawan, on the other hand, did manage to get monkey of his back a bit by scoring a classy 100. Virat kohli also looked determined, although he got out pulling a long hop. Sunil Gavaskar in his column pointed finger towards Kohli and ask him to take a mature approach rather than macho approach. Although, it looks a bit of overreaction and Virat Kohli is always been targeted for no reason for long time in Indian cricket despite giving some scintillating performances.
The most disappointing performers in indian cricket team are Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane. Both these players are continued to be promoted as 'talented players' by Mumbai lobby, but haven't shown any of that talent when playing for national team. Even yuvraj singh and VVS laxman, with their talent, were not given as much leeway as these tow have given, when it comes to performances in test match cricket. Obviously, double standards are continued to be practiced in Indian cricket. If India needs to stop the loosing streak and want to have wins rather than defeats against their name, they need to throw out non-performers, and need to back those who are real fighters. Ravindra Jadeja has shown himself to be one such fighter.
India also needs a better captaincy, a better leader. Sometimes it appears that there is too much talent on disposal of MS Dhoni, but to show the world that he has derived some special strategies, he makes the mockery of the game and his resources.
Hopefully India will win the second and final test match against New Zealand and come back with some confidence in hand before the start of Asia Cup.
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