All is Well in Indian Cricket...

I just finished watching the hollywood flick, "We are Marshall". The theme of the movie was, in every Sport, for any country, It is always about Winning...May be Sometimes..It is just not about Winning. May be It is about Playing the Game itself. May be It is about the playing the game in the right Spirit.

First of all, I gotto ask the Existence of this series, between India and Australia. India just had a very very busy Summer when they played in UK a very long series and then many of the young blood went on to play the World Cup in South Africa. And The Big Important Series against Pakistan and away tour of Australia is coming up. We just had a night mare of a time in the One Day World Cup. We lost our Coach. We lost our Captain. May be, this Series, in between India and Australia, shouldnt have taken place at the first.

I mean, Australia is not here to play any test matches, What importance it provides to travel all the way to play 7 One Dayers. I dont buy it. BCCI is such a stupid organization and as said by Mohinder Amarnath, "They are bunch of Jokers".

If It would have been in my hand, I would have took this time to concentrate on appointing the coach, giving the key players little bit of rest and plan the future ahead. Instead of that, they would be busy, giving unnecessary statements in the Media and Playing this series.

Suppose, Rahul Dravid would have been the captain and Coach would have been Greg Chappel or Suppose, All 3 Seniors were not playing and we had the same team played in the 20-20 World Cup, We still would have lost the series against Australia.

Australia has a strong institution. They have back up players. Their Administrators are more organized. There Players are more tough and experienced. They have everything that it takes to beat the team India. So, If you are looking at the Result then Please Do not get Disappointed.

If there is anything which team India should do first, is to Appoint a Coach. Secondly, They gotto forget about the Senior Vs Junior thing and select the best available team. Third, They gotto find a good Right Handed Fast Bowler( Choices are, Sreesanth/Munaf/VRV Singh/Ishant Sharma/Bose ).

Dhoni is very young captain and he is still learning few tricks. So I was not disappointed when Australia scored 300 runs batting first in consecutive two games. You do not learn the Captainship in the First game, It takes about 1 year (Steve Waugh's statement). I think It is the third game, when Dhoni learned things and restricted Australia to bring down 25 runs. Now here Not to forget that, Indian Pitches offers nothing to the Bowlers. If any batsman applies himself well, get used to the bounce (which is about knee height) could score lots of runs.

That is exactly what Australians did in the First 3 games, and when you have strong fielding side (Clarke/Ponting/Symonds/Lee) , it takes about 20 runs difference. I am lucky enough to watch all the games (mostly complete games), and our running between the wicket is so pathetic that we loose atleast 20 runs in it, not to mention the poor fielding and throwing arm which cost another 10-15.

Even today's game, In First 15 overs, Tendulkar scored 8 Boundaries and 3 singles. Overall the entire team had some 8 singles in 15 overs. then comes Australians and they have 8 singles in the 3 overs. There are so many other basic things, that we lack which tells me, "Guys, Get the Good Coach Please".

Not to Criticize, Tendulkar more, the 4th Game, He was out 3 times, 2 times LBW and 1 time a clean inside edge. This is the first time, I saw, Tendulkar not walking when he edge the ball. In the 4th Game, Tendulkar scored 3 runs in the first 30 balls he faced. What that does, is get Ganguly under pressure and he had to play the shots on the bad ball.

Not to create Sympathy for Ganguly, When his the last time he scored 100? or Big knock. Ganguly also, gives good partnership but gets out in his 40's and 60's. This does not help any team. Your Top 4, whoever gets in should go and get the big score to make life easy for our Captain and lower order batsmans.

Our Selectors have not done any favor by giving the squad to Dhoni. 3 Left armer fast bowlers and only 1 Righty? and that too, Sreesanth who looses his control in virtually every game. so, If you sit him, which Dhoni did in last 2 games, you gotto go with 3 Left Arm Fast Bowlers, while Munaf Patel/Ishant Sharma is getting the Bombay Batsmen out.

Also, Once you select 3 Seniors and Yuvraj with Dhoni, you only have one space left and choices are many. Rohit Sharma/Karthik/Uthapa and before Gambhir and now Badrinath. 4 guys fighting for one spot? is that fair??

Dravid was quiet unfortunate to get very good ball first up, while Yuvraj was very upset with the crowd hanging near Sight Screen and Uthapa's decision was arguable. This kind of stuff does not come in newspaper or cricinfo article, but you gotto see the game to understand in which situation we are loosing.

If we are able to Tie the series, I would rate this as one of the greatest come back. If we loose the series 4-2, I would say it was predicatable result and If we loose the series 5-1 , I would say, It was a good learning experience for Dhoni and the team and lets take the lesson learned, appoint a Coach, win the Pakistan Series and Go to australia with Head High.

May be, May be I am sensing Tendulkar's One Day Retirement on the cards. Knowing him, He would hide as much as possible till the end or Perhaps he wants to play one more series in Australia. Time Will Tell...but All is not that bad in Indian Cricket..There are few pieces missing, little bit of game plan needs to be changed and key and most important, Someone needs to take the complete control of the team.