Makeover needed for India

Harsha Bhogle reviews the India’s loss to Australia in their first Super Eight encounter. Will the 2007 champions manage to bounce back?

I’m afraid India were seriously bad today. But they were fair. They were equally bad with bat, ball and in the field. And if Australia weren’t looking awesome enough, India made them look better!

Most of the criticism will focus on the batting but I’m afraid the bowlers conceded too many runs; only looking like they belonged towards the end of the innings when 215 looked on.

I suspect there is a problem with the composition of the side. Only three seamers available now and I greatly fear that Dhoni doesn’t have too much confidence in one of them. If ever Vinay Kumar had to be played, it was in this game but I am going to stick my neck out and say Dhoni was right. This was a surface for the quick bowler, and the medium pacer had very little going for him. We saw that with Watson when he bowled and in the later game when the West Indians were bowling dibbly-dobbly stuff.

It was a surface where there was something for a quality spinner and there was only one on view. Harbhajan continued his excellent form and I think it helped that he gets under the skin of the Aussies. They didn’t want to lose a wicket to him! But Jadeja looks below par at this level. He doesn’t turn the ball much and looked flat, in every sense of the word. With Zaheer in poor form as well, it meant 2 of the top 4 bowlers were struggling. Currently, India is not a side teams don’t want to face.

And word has gone around that India don’t like the short stuff. Nobody really likes it but India make a spectacle of not liking it sometimes. And as a result, the batting today was embarrassing. The scorecard will tell you that Rohit Sharma scored most of the runs but in the first few balls he faced, he gave himself a few opportunities at getting out as well. Thereafter he played the kind of shots that mark him out as special but he needed to have more of the strike towards the end when India were playing for the net run rate. It wasn’t clever to find himself at the non-striker’s end with Zaheer and Nehra.

India must win both games now. They can but they will need a serious makeover.