Fitness or Talent

Tendulkar played a magnificent inning against England. He was focused and frozen while Sehwag was bombarding. He launch into the inning after the departure of Sehwag. He played cautiously, with a big score in mind; perhaps a century and he achieved his target. He is astute reader of media reports and statements prior to the game. He listen Swann to silence the Indian crowd and replied him with an elegant assault and hips of sixes.

India was outplayed in the run-chase by Strauss and Bell. England was cruising for a victory until Dhoni brought in Zaheer Khan as almost last throw of a dice. It’s amazing how 600 ball game gets changed in the span of 3 balls. Zaheer’s first over of third power play converted a soap opera into a top-notch Thriller.

Clearly, If India has to pick two match winners; they are Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan for their batting and bowling respectively. However they lacked so poorly in the third department called “Fielding” which actually cost India the game and one extra point.

There is no way to prove statistically, “the lack of effort” in the team game. Dhoni’s post-match comment of “We can not improve much on our fielding” was a honest confession of a team lead who is practically aware of the situation. Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan are perhaps spearhead of India’s batting and bowling department but they are no where close to being the Match-Fit.

You can not prove you are match fit, by scoring a hundred or taking 5 wickets. Match fitness is about being active and remaining actively involved throughout the span of 7 hour game. What was more disturbing was there was a lack of effort for fielding from both. Virat Kohli misfielded and dropped a catch, Harbhajan singh did not put 2 hands to try a catch, Raina took the eyes of the ball and misfielded, Gambhir’s throw was not good enough to reach the crease, are some of the examples which show India was poor in their fielding but there was no “Lack of effort” in above examples. In case of Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan; it was lack of effort. Lack of effort was due to the fact that they are scared that if they try harder in the field, they can pull a muscle or two and perhaps have to sit out from the rest of the tournament.

It’s almost like you are going in a war with 9 soldiers and you have to protect other two throughout 50 overs. They surely have the talent to produce match winning moments but do they have the match fitness? Answer is clearly No, they are not match fit. Next Question is to the selectors of the Indian team; would you select players in the team based on mach fitness OR that’s not a criteria at all. Is Indian team going back to the days of Nabjot Sidhu and Sanjay Manjrekar where, if they played a good knock; they would be sitting in the dressing room and 12^th man will be utilized of their “Lack of Effort”.

Take a leaf out of Australian’s book; Michael Hussey, their best batsman in one day format, is not in the team because he was not match fit. Can India do that for Sachin Tendulkar? Would India have not scored the same amount of total had Sachin not present? Would Sehwag and Gambhir are less threatening pair compare to Sachin and Sehwag? Wasn’t there occasions when India was bating where Sachin denied singles 3 or 4 times as it would stretch his thigh muscle? Wasn’t there a sign after scoring a century that Tendulkar was looking tired (compare the freshness of Strauss after fielding for 50 overs and then scoring a hundred)

Australians dropped out Symonds long time ago, because, he was not creating a good environment in the dressing room. Can India do that for Sreesanth?

There are questions with only one possible answer. “Yeh India hai yaar, yahan pe sab chalta hai”. Hopefully we get out of this, “Sab Chalta hai” mentality and start giving preference to what is right rather than what is politically correct.