Kumble and team India are more focussed on OZ tour. Since India were already up 1-0, Kumble's interest had shifted to Dravid's batting practice, because there is only one 3 day match before 1st test in Australia. The other agenda was to make sure Dinesh had a seat to Australia, because Kumble is not at all in favour of Parthiv Patel because of his wicket keeping fiasco few years back. Anyway Kumble completely let down his fans who had come to watch India win the match. Also India had bowled over 160 overs just the 2 days before and were not too excited to bowl on that pitch again the second time. For more details you can see Gavaskar and Imran Khan's columns on Kumble's delayed declaration. Even Pak coach Lawson has said India were not too keen on playing the 3rd test with Pakistan because Indians needed much needed rest before stessful Australia series.
read his comments. he said, on declaration he wanted to give the target so much that it wud b difficult for the opposition to achieve it in the end. Thus he says, ind cant declare against ausi (if not all out by ausi.) coz ausi can achieve any target against the ind bowling.
RE:RE:Kumble cant win a test match in ausi.
by . on Dec 13, 2007 09:17 PM
further he says 45 overs were enough to get opposition out. what rubbish. his side cud not bowl out opponents allowing them more than 500 runs.
This immature captain of Indian team put the half century of a player over the team. This is shameless act and he deserves to be fired for this. He is the best spinner in India and may be best after Muralitharan in the world but he is a weak checkenhearted captain. He had no game plan for the match. His batsmen played for the draw in the second innings with the exception of Ganguly. But he was great in the Pakistan second inning by taking five wickets. If only he had declared earlier he would have more time for himself to finish off the pakis. We need a new captain. BCCI, I hope you are watching people's feedback!!!!
RE:Kumble put Kartick first before team - SHAME on You!
by . on Dec 13, 2007 09:10 PM
right. kumble sacrificed ind for karthik. he is not loyal to b a capt of ind side.
RE:Kumble put Kartick first before team - SHAME on You!
by India on Dec 13, 2007 08:27 PM
Arv Singh,you are right on the money. What you have said is correct. Kumble was more interested in giving batting practice to his teammate Dravid who is in poor form, just before the OZ series. Also he wanted to make sure, Dinesh got selected for OZ tour. If Kumble wanted to win the test he would have sent Laxman or Yuvraj at #3 to score runs quickly. But he preferred that Dravid get batting practice before OZ tour. All in all one should not expect too much from Kumble as captain. He is just like Dravid, very defensive in his approach. Such captains rarely win matches. They are always content with draws than wins. But with that mindset they lose more matches.
Overcautious Kumble took no risks and batted too long. If he had declared 1 hour earlier and his batsmen had scored faster, India could have won this match. This captain is timid and lacks aggression. Reminds me of old days of Dravid who used to stare at his shoes when going got tough. By the way, Kumble bowled with fire in the second innings. He is undoubtedly the best spinner in India. He should continue to play more - test and one days.
For those of you who wonder why Indian captains are not as aggressive as their Aussie counterparts - the primary reason is YOU. Yes, YOU. You make such a big deal when India lose, and the BCCI takes the opinion of novices such as yourself so much into account, that a captain is sub-consciously under pressure to play it safe. If we had lost this game, we would have not won a test series vs pak in over 27 yrs, and you would be all over Kumble, in his first series as captain. Talk of match fixing and things of that nature won't be far...
The secondary reason is that Aussies are so used to winning that they are more likely to gamble on a result. When you make little, you are less likely to invest in risky ventures, and the same applies to cricket. Aussies are willing to risk the loss of a few games to win overall because they win most of their games. India is willing to eschew risk to hang on to their little margins (and satisfy the public).
Perhaps this will change when India stars winning more games consistently, or when junta stop burning effigies of players and stoning their houses whenever we lose... I'm not sure which is more likely :D
RE:Kumble's decision was fine
by . on Dec 13, 2007 09:19 PM
good that ind won the series against pak. but talking too much abt 27 years, y one forgest abt many years that were wasted due to indo-pak political tussle.
The big mistake Kumble did was bowling so well and fighting even in such a dead match and getting five wickets. Everybody thought that it was a drawn match including experts and hence if Pak ended with something like 120 for 2 or 3 wickets nobody would have bothered. Because Kumble bowled so well and Pak also played carelessly thinking that they cannot be lost situation became like that, we fans now retrospectively criticise. It is easy to criticise at the end of match but tell me how many would have thought that match will reach such interesting stage. There is a thin line of difference between positivity and overconfidence. We are winning series after 27 years itself is a great achievement. If fans feel that some body was more positive then why did those positive people could not win series earlier. When you take a decision sometimes we have to take our weakeness also into account and play to our strengths. So If Kumble felt that winning series is important and that he does not want to give even 5% chance for Pak to win the test, in the context of series it is fine. May be If we were trailing or level in series then things are different. Any way even if there was some chance pakistan would have taken it and such risk was really not necessary for India. It is also true that Pakistan would have got dejected after realising that they don't have any chance and that could have reduced their motivation to play and hence they played badly. In india it is not possible to please al
RE:Nothing wrong in Kumble decision
by India on Dec 13, 2007 03:57 PM
If a captain is afraid of losing then he will not win many matches. That is one of the reasons Indian cricket team wins very few matches even at home. The other reason is of course lack of match winning bowlers, Kumble being the exception.
RE:Nothing wrong in Kumble decision
by Janardhana on Dec 13, 2007 06:02 PM
If you call it is fear of loosing so be it. Some fear should be there, then only we play properly. You can't go and bang your head to a stone just because you are brave. Instead of calling it a fear of loosing, you can call it as a tactic to totally shut pakistan out from series, which made them frustrated and play badly and loose 7 wickets and if not for badlight we would have won easily. On the contrary, if pakistan had a chance to win, they would have played positively and result could have been different. So it could have been a tactic by Kumble and as he told, if he had known that badlight is going to stop play then he would have declared early. Unfortunately, we fans ask too much that kumble should have known about weather and declared early.
RE:Nothing wrong in Kumble decision
by . on Dec 13, 2007 09:15 PM
whether pak were 120/3 or 162/7. it was abt giving some fighting total to the opposition on the dead pitch when sourav was out in his nineties. by not doing so n giving match practice to kartik, he says 45 overs were enough to bowl out pak. what a joke or overconfidence.
RE:Nothing wrong in Kumble decision
by raghu on Dec 14, 2007 08:51 PM
this was an important milestone for us... and as one of the comments says, the biggest reason for playing safe are guys like you who make a big deal when India loses.... He can be brave enough, but as fans you must be able to accept defeat...First learn that and the point fingers at cricketers....
RE:Nothing wrong in Kumble decision
by Suman Bhat on Dec 13, 2007 03:41 PM
team ind won serees in jWI ater 3 decades and in england after 2 decades and in india against pakistan after 27 yrs kumble like dravid is being less flameboyunt is a soft terget to criticise... winning the series by playing safe is very important rather tthan getting series lost or drawn kudos to captain kumble and team
RE:Nothing wrong in Kumble decision
by Raja Ivaturi on Dec 13, 2007 06:07 PM
I dont agree. When you have seen the way people scored runs, this doesnt make sense of declaring early. It was Kumble who turned the match when everyone had only one result in mind which was Draw.
The Dicission of Anil kumble is not at all challenging,its clear that no team can chase that target within given period of time,then wht is the point of putting the huge target in front of pakistan in lessers, Indians cricketers are never become chompions,without taking bold decisions unlike Australions.Wht would happen if happens if they lose, afterall the series would have ended with a draw,nothing more than that.Already pakistan down in series by one test,the result of y'day match would n't have made much differbence even if the lose also.
RE:Not a challenging and sportive dicision by Anil Kumble
by India on Dec 13, 2007 02:38 PM
Good for you Vijay Kante. Tell it like it is. Kumble let down his home crowd in a big way. Kumble lost a good chance to give his hometown a great win over Pak. What a let down. For some unknown reason Kumble lost all faith in India's bowlers including himself. How can he tackle Aaustralia with this kind of lack of self belief? God help India in Australia. 2 consecutive tests India scored over 600 and still did not win both.
RE:RE:Not a challenging and sportive dicision by Anil Kumble
by Suman Bhat on Dec 13, 2007 03:42 PM
team ind won serees in jWI ater 3 decades and in england after 2 decades and in india against pakistan after 27 yrs winning the series by playing safe is very important rather tthan getting series lost or drawn. kudos to captain kumble and team
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