Today's cricket game is mind game-show aggression and showmanship, and that is what ganguly did and he was successful and carried the team. Dravid is a good individual player by himself and too nice- today nicety will not work- an aggressive Ponting, a cunning Inzamun, a notorious Smith, and a refined mind game playing laura is required. Good players like Agarkar, pathan dropped and Chappell seems to be over !Nagesh.
There is hardly any surprise in the manner in which India has been performing in the West Indies. The hype created by the media over dravid and co.'s performance in the docile sub-continent pitches, has been thoroughly exposed by the immensely talented men led by Lara. Barring a Kumble, a Dravid or a Yuvraj, in reality we must be out of our minds to call Team India world class. Surely, an entire team cannot loose form all at once. Team India is, I am afraid, just an ordinary outfit of media created superstars. And, why does should the media do so? Well, the advertisers and brands endorsed by our players are behind this hype,as creating the larger than life image helps them.It seems that the rest of the world just about tolerates the nonsense that goes on in the name of Indian cricket - after all who would dare to offend the milch cow named the BCCI?
Sir, Mr More wanted to look forward and discarded Ganguly. The result a 3rd ranked team lost to 8th ranked team. Whereas Mr Mores counterpart looked backward and appointed Lara as Captain. See the result, they just crushed India. They are oozing with confidence. Score on 1st day of 1st test say so. You can never belittle Mr Dalmiyas contribution to Indian cricket. Similarly we look forward to your contribution In Indian cricket. Here is how you can contribute, just give the following things to the concerned persons. Ganguly His place in the team and captainship Dravid fix his place as batsman No 3 as he is solid there. Kumble His (long over due) place in the team. Laxman - His (long over due) place in the team Wright Get him back as coach. Chappell A flight ticket to Australia Throw out all non-cricketers from the board and handover the office to the ex-cricketers who have played at least 50 test matches. And Finally, K.More A solid kick (or else this man will ruin Indian cricket).
I am indeed suprised at how far the Indian Team Think Tank can be dictated to by the said whims and fantasies of the great celebrated Coach Mr Greg Chappel whose main intention is to see that India languishes at the bottom of both the ODI and Test Rankings. Otherwise no sane person would have dropped 2 of ur most experienced Bowlers Irfan and Harbhajan. Seeing VRV Singh bat I was reminded of a novice who used to hold his willow upside down and the more horrible spectacle was that his intention was to get out somehow. I do not really know what game Chappel is playing and at whose dictates. Now probably Chappel's mentor will realize the value of Tendulkars and Gangulys. Let chappel emulate any of the two history is agt as he has been the most unsucceessfull skip of Australia. We have a penchant for picking up those trash who were sent packing from their own Country. Dismiss him immediately and rescind his Contract otherwise The Team India will be just suffering from all incurable syndrommes and perhaps will even fail to qualify for the 2nd stage in the 2007 WORLD CUP.
Morning papers carried warning from Andy Roberts to Sehwag, in which he had sounded a note of caution that Sehwag was not applying himself to stay and play long innings. How true he was!
Repeated failure of batsmen tends one to believe that Chappel is experimenting too much with team. Stars like Dhoni, Yuvaraj and Kaif are slowly surely turning to become paper tigers. All of them seem to be happy with themselves and refuse to do a self-introspection of their innings.
The failure of the team is largely due to management. One of the team should engage himself in studying the opposing bowers and suggesting alterations in the game plan. WI bowling is certainly as dangerous as it used to be when their speed quartet was in action. They are accurate and fielders lend admirable support. Brian Lara and WI management team have assessed each and every Indian player and plan bowling attach to counter the specialis batsmen.
The WISE MEN had done it again. Agarkar out after being the best bowler on show in the onedayers as his past history didn't back him up. Harbhajan & Pathan out as their present history lacked substance. Three pacers with combined experience of 3 tests, and the team manager says-he doesn't believe that they lack experience, VRV has played well in A tours--Pearls of wisdom that needs to be recorded for posterity. Bizzare may at the best describe the decisions, but then sports in India has always been so. God bless them all.
It seems India has not yet learnt any lessons from ODIs. The weakness in this tea mis that most of the players are young and new with not much experience for playing outside the subcontinent. The team should be a mixture of Youth and experience so that the new can learn from the senior ones. You can't have a pace ball attack of 3 new seamers. Ajit Agarkar and Ashish Nehra should have been included in the team. Given the former's form in the ODI, he should have had a place inthe team. While selectingther team, Kiran More and co. remarked that Agarkar's record is not so great in Test matches. He seems to have forgotten that form records alone do not matter. If so, Sourav Ganguly should be in the team given that he has good records. Also Agarkar's is the latest name from India featuring in the centurion batsmen list hung in the visiting dressing room at the Lords cricket ground - the home of cricket. The same can be said about batting lineup. Inexperience can be seen in the agressinve shots these young batsmen try to play. They forget that this is a test match. Loss in ODI series also seems to have dented the confidence. The prescence of a pro like Sachin Tendulkar is sorely missed.
The performance above clearly underlines the lack of stability in the Indian team. we dont hve players like saurav,laxman,sachin,darvid who the jewels of the middle order.
The politics of vendetta underlined the removal of ganguly and also sidelining of laxman. This underlined a huge loss of laxman's confidence.
In the last series these 2 were the key to a good indian performance. I hope Chappel gets the message and provides stability to the indian middle order.
This would require a good solid look to indian middle order whih at this point looks very fragile.
