Well, the Indian cricket team has just authored one of the future best selling classics - "How to consistently loose from winning positions - a practical illustration". I am talking about the recently concluded India - Australia series as most of you would have rightly guessed. At the beginning of the series, I thought India would win the series 5-2. Great that the score line read close to that (the last match was washed out and hence it was 2 - 4), but pity that the Aussies came out on top.
The first match at Vadodara was one of the finest cricket matches. With India chasing 290+ with 7 wickets down for 210, Bhajji and Praveen took us close to the victory. When it was 42 required of 3 overs with 3 wickets in hand, every one felt it's gonna be tough. But when they brought it down to 9 required of the last over (with 3 wkts in hand!!), I think Bhajji should have tried for singles and twos (eventually a boundary would have come!!). But, no regrets, great job done and great mettle shown. The Indian team used this momentum well to move 2-1 ahead in the series (Thanks to that 148 run partnership between Dhoni and Yuvraj). That time I thought, it's gonna be 6-1 India!!
Came the 4th ODI at Mohali - it was great bowling to have bundled the Aussies in 48 overs for 250. Confidence can do wonders but over confidence will do what it did to us!! Coming out of a successful chase in the previos match, with many of the batsmen in good form and Sehwag showing his pyrotechniques to race to 50 in 6 overs, all it required was normal, responsible batting to see us through. It was not to be!!
The 5th ODI at Hyderabad was the biggest blooper of all. No one would have expected the team to chase 350. Had India lost by a margin of 100 runs (like the Aussies did in the 2nd encounter), there wouldn't have been much talk. But having reached within striking distance, with 50 runs required in 40 odd balls and batting powerplay still to be taken, Raina played a skier!! Why was Bhajji sent ahead of Jadeja? When 19 runs were required in 18 balls, why did Sachin have to try that shot? His mere presence would have sent chills in Aussie spines and we would have cruised through!! And as the icing in the cake, Jadeja just ran himself out :( As Sunny put it, "Jadeja runs for no rhyme or reason!!" :). The pitch was just a concrete strip (!!) and you just needed wickets (warm bodies!!) to score runs. Again, it was not to be!!
The Guwahati (mis)match needs no mention!!
Sure, we fought in all the games till the end. It was a great show by our team, but we fought when we needn't have :). With Aussies missing some of their key players, this was one of the better chances to have pulled off a convincing series win. But we lost it 2-4 :( Indians definitely were superior players on paper (man to man), but we couldn't finish close games and that has hurt us YET AGAIN!!
Hope we would improve on that aspect and reach and sustain the mush coveted No.1 ranking!!!
All the best to the team for the upcoming SL series.
Cheers!!
All the best to the team for the upcoming SL series.
Cheers!!
