Indians in comfort zone?
The rain-abandoned game against Australia has only compounded matters for India who now find themselves in a not-so-happy situation at the Champions Trophy.
I am afraid when the rain came down, Australia seemed to have lost more than India did! I suspect India got away with one point more than they might have! Our scorer told us the Duckworth-Lewis target was 153 which India might have fancied but as they watched the thunder and lightning, they would have realised they don’t have the bowling to win this tournament.
Praveen Kumar over RP Singh seemed a good move. Praveen doesn’t have the spark that RP has, or indeed the ability to be a match winner but he is far more consistent, doesn’t have the fade-outs that seem to characterise RP’s short career; which is a pity because India are losing out on a classy bowler.
But the disappointments on the day were Ishant Sharma, who looks like he needs a bowling makeover, and Harbhajan Singh who hasn’t been able to come to terms with this surface. Funnily, these two would have been top of Dhoni’s go-to list before he came here. In fact till Ishant came on, India had made a decent start, Nehra and Praveen Kumar had bowled a lovely length, and the track was looking a bit trickier. But in his first over, the pressure that had been built up vanished and Ponting showed us why he is such a class player.
I believe Australia were on course to go past 300. Cameron White had already shown what a powerful hitter he can be and with Hopes and Johnson to come, they had a lot of firepower left. And chasing 300 with a batsman short wouldn’t have been easy. Should India go out of this tournament, and things are almost entirely beyond their control now, they need to ask themselves hard questions about the seamers. This spike-and-drop product life cycle isn’t working. Every bowler is down on pace, Praveen Kumar was bowling just over 120, and if there is a pattern there has to be a reason.
It could be that they are playing too much cricket. Or it could be that they are getting into a comfort zone. Why do I get the impression the latter is truer?
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Hi Harsha, You are absolutely right. I thought in the similar manner when Piane was treating Harbhajan as a gully bowler. The overall picture looks pity and awful.