Shikhar Dhawan is going great

In India, if one thing is common across the cricketing fraternity, it is 'Impatience'. It doesn't matter if someone is playing his first match, or is first time playing in overseas conditions, the Indians are always ready to paste label on player's forehead. Raina has been labeled as 'flat track bully', Virat Kohli was almost labeled as 'bad man', and Shikhar Dhawan can be labeled 'useless' anytime going by how things are going round in Indian cricket.

Yes, Shikhar Dhawan failed in both ODIs and test matches in South Africa. But the criticism from former Indian greats and commentators like Harsha Bhogle and Aakash Chopra, in particular about the way Shikhar Dhawan plays short ball, is too much over the top. After all what you are expecting from a career which is just 11 innings old in test match cricket. He is too inexperienced to even take something constructive from this huge criticism leveled against him. It's like saying to dhawan 'Since you have done well at the start of your career despite us claiming that no one coming from India's first class cricket has the quality to play at international level, thus proving us wrong and idiots when it comes to analysing cricket, we will attack you till you loose your confidence and become an ordinary player'. This criticism has never done any good to Indian cricket, but it goes on.

But Shikhar Dhawan is a fighter. He came back punching with two quality knocks of 100 and 98 in New Zealand, and proving that it was just inexperience and nothing else that made him perform poorly in South Africa. Actually this is the story of all young indian cricketers. It is a miracle that despite having not played many cricket matches they have won big tournaments like champions trophy where no one gave them even an iota of a chance.

Actually when there were demands from cricket loving community of India to drop the under performing senior players, the cricket experts always sprung up with excuse that there is no replacement. Hundreds of articles were written to show that these experts know their game and they succeeded in becoming famous. Most of them still troll on twitter. But the new crop of players, when introduces, started performing from the word go. This has irked these cricket experts, no doubt.

A story related to this is call by Sunil Gavaskar to remove Duncan Fletcher from the post of coach of Indian cricket team. Gavaskar is of the view that since the day Duncan took over the mental of coach of Indian cricket the teams performance has dived downhill and the team is now in to the hell. But same can be said about 'MS Dhoni'. Yes one can say that under Mahendra Singh Dhoni Indian cricket team achieved pole position in ICC test rankings, but it is a fact that most of the matches won by India to reach at the top were played at home. As soon as MS Dhoni stepped outside India, he found captaincy a very tough task and he failed to succeed. Now don't say Gary Kirsten would have made the differnce. No! This is because the same thing is true for Gary Kirsten's as well. He coached when India played at home all the matches. Very cleverly he slipped out when foreign tours were about to start. Winning at home was never a problem for India. It is their overseas record which has always been a matter of concern.

Coming back to Shikhar Dhawan, the guy is real hard worker and play with passion. He is very patriotic and his mustache twirl will turn the future of Indian cricket towards good. My humble appeal to all cricket fans of India, and experts too, be patient. Don't always find faults in techniques of the batsmen when world number 1 and 2, Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander are operating at the other hand. There are many technically unequipped batsmen in Sri Lanka and Pakistan side who you call 'Greats of cricket'.

ODI is a role based cricket game, please understand india

Indian cricket team is loosing most of the ODI (One Day International) cricket matches off late. And as always, experts from India have found a reason of loss in lack of technique of batsmen and poor bowling resources. But things aren't straightforward as that. India is confusing ODI cricket and Test Match Cricket.

Don't underestimate role of finishers in ODI
cricket!

India is of the theory of playing out first 10 overs without loosing a wicket and settle for a score between 20-30 runs and then accelerate later on with wickets in hands. But for that to happen you need finishers in the team. Without Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, there are no finishers in this indian team. India have selected players who might have good solid front foot and back foot defense, and may be who are better looking against short pitch bowling than Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh, but this ploy of selecting technincally good batsmen has messed up everything. With theory of saving wickets at top, you would really like to have players at the end who have ability to attack and cover up for slow and secure starts. Not only Indian team is not getting off to fast starts, as was the case when Sehwag and Gambhir were around, to make matter worst they are not looking secure as well, loosing couple of wickets early.

On the name of technique some very good players have been dropped. Yuvraj Singh can hit 6 sixes in an over and Suresh Raina can hit few of them as well. You need to have that ability even if you can't do it every time.

At top of the order you need someone to get as many as possible in powerplay overs, at least look to do that, especially in subcontinent since it is mighty difficult to do anything against old ball on slow and low pitches and with bowlers like 'Lasith Malinga' and 'Saeed Ajmal' bowling accurately. But Indian Cricket is lost in theories. There are people of 1970's and 1980's sitting in commentary boxes representing India who don't waste any time criticising players if they get out trying to play their role.

Rohit Sharma can easily play freely and go over the top, but he won't do that because he knows that someone sitting in commentary box will reprimand him if he gets out trying to play his role, even make him look like a schoolboy with his words and blame him of not having elementary cricket knowledge. Interestingly, the same man would praise and shower all the appreciation on Kusal Perera and Shahid Afridi if they slog a few terming it as good strategy and as per their role.

India has never given respect to someone who has maintained average of 35 (more than Mahela Jaywardene's) and strike rate of 95 (again more than Mahela Jaywardene's) over 200 caps. On the name of bad technique and how a player looks suspect against a bouncy ball, India is quite happy to drop their finishers and instead select those who might look a bit solid but can never get as many as India needs to achieve a safe score.

Ajinkya Rahane has had a good start to its test career. According to theory of Indian cricket pundits "one who is good test players is surely a good ODI player," but it is not true always. Ajinkya Rahane has looked tense and incapable to consistently do what Suresh Raina did with good consistency, and that is to get those 35 runs at strike rate of 100 in slog overs. It requires skills, a different skill than may be what is required in test cricket.

But Indian Cricket is confused. They fail to understand that ODI cricket is a role based cricket. You need cricketers who can maximize the first 10 overs, consolidate the mid innings, and then finish their batting with a bang.

Much blame of it goes to commentators like Hasrha Bhogle, Aakash Chopra, Sunil Gavaskar, and Ravi Shastri. Their old theories and the environment that it creates, is not helping indian cricket at all.

Harsha Bhogle says: "We are going back to times when people used to take time in first 15 overs," Really? Jesse Ryder, Kusal Perera, Quinton De Kock all are trying to get as many as possible in first few overs. Let Indian openers do that, and please don't impose your theory so much that they don't even try to attack a bit.

Varun Aaron fast, fearsome bowler of Indian Cricket deserve some respect

Varun Aaron has played only 19 first class game, so if he misses his line and length a bit, it is very understandable. But he has what India is looking for years - PACE!

Varun Aaron clocked 155 kph, faster ever ball from Indian fast bowler
in cricket

Yesterday in match between India and Bangladesh in Asia Cup at Fatullah, Varun Aaron averaged 145 kph on speed gun. He even touched 150 kph at times, even in returning spells, and showed us that he has in him, along with Umesh Yadav, to become India's first tare away new ball opening pair.

But fear in India is always been how bowlers are treated. Kapil Dev, former Indian captain and opening fast medium bowler, once said that batsmen are treated as 'owners' and bowlers as 'labors' in India. They aren't given the respect they deserve. After all they are also servants of Indian cricket just like batsmen. But batsmen having created many records by batting on flat and docile wickets in India, even scoring 12 centuries against West Indies in past on such wickets, have a big 'EGO', and they are in no mood to give that respect to the bowlers.

One saw yesterday when ball slipped out of Varun Aaron's hand, possibly due to sweaty conditions at humid fatullah in bangladesh, and it ended up as a 'beamer'. In a game of cricket, a beamer is a ball delivered by a bowler that does not bounce before reaching the batsmen and end up above his waist. Without giving any thought to conditions that prevailed, and without wasting any time, Sunil Gavaskar was all over young Varon Aaron. "Don't tell me that ball slips out of hand at this level. He should not only be suspended, but also banned for quite a few matches," Gavaskar said.

May I tell you that in last 50 matches 35 beamer's have been bowled, and those were not delivered by Indian bowlers. But this is the sort of attitude we carry towards bowlers in India and then expect them to come up with good. I am sorry nothing good is going to happen unless former Indian cricketers drop their ego and behave as a servant of Indian cricket. Varon Aaron is not playing here to get a certificate on how to behave on cricket field. And Aaron has never taken is partner off the field of play when umpire has given him LBW, that's what Sunil Gavaskar did in Australia, something Ricky Ponting keeps reminding us.

What has also been disappointing is this constant calls from former great indian batsmen to reduce pace/speed of India's bowlers. Other teams, like Australia and South Africa, encourage their bowlers to ball as quick as possible and never compromise on speed. They feel that line and length will come with experience but if a bowler deliberately reduces his pace it doesn't come back. But there is 'no one' who understands fast bowling, and its dynamics, in India and they keep making 'silly' comments. You wouldn't have heard anything more than 'pitch the ball up, swing it' from Indian commentators. It is as if pitching the ball up and swinging it will happen easily and batsmen will remain static and not take that pitch up ball on full, i.e convert it into a fall toss, and hammer it away. It's painful to see how cricketers of 80's with their  old theories have been able to impose on new generation cricketers, especially bowlers.

Both Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron are assets of Indian cricket. They need to be groomed well. Insulting them for everything will not help. What will not help them is blaming them for intentional beamers, which they never intended. Start giving some respect to Indian bowlers and they will deliver. Just like Russel Arnold of Sri Lanka was giving it more than Harsha Bhogle of India at commentary yesterday.