Team India and Looking towards 'future'

Analysis of WI Tour of India - 2006

Before the series started, both teams are almost technically of same stuff - a bunch of youngsters leading by an experienced captain. Both were on their winning path. WI white washed Zimbabwe as India came here after the series win against, England, Pakistan, and Srilanka. But still experts gave India more chance in that series. But very convincingly WI sealed the series with 4-1 lead. In each match they were improving and the last two matches they hardly gave India an upper hand.

Batting

Generally speaking, there was no match-wining batting performance by Indian’s in this series expect Dravid and Kaif’s first match performance. Even if Shewag scored two close centuries, he couldn’t convert it into a win. He fell well short of victory. Kaifs other half centuries also were in vain. Yuvraj seemed to continue his form but couldn’t convert any of his innings into victory (which he was doing in the previous series). Dhony was the real tragedy of the series. Raina also proved his inexpreince and inability to play in forign soil. Pathan as a batsman was also a failure. Low middle order like Ramesh Powar and Venu Gopal Rao again proved they are not fit in the scheme of an ODI. The real worry in the batting is the opening issues. Dravid’s new roles as opener didn’t click and more over it misfired in other games expect the first one. The late inclusion of Robin Uttapa as an opener is also failed miserably.

So I think, even if experimentation in batting order succeeded in the home grounds and against a weak-bowling attack, it miserably failed against an average bowling attack especially outside the subcontinent. (Remember India is going to play their WC matches in this subcontinent.) So better stop experimentations and its already late to follow a batting order which has flexibility to some extent. Opening issues are the second issue to sort out. Calling back an experienced player like Sourav will give
strength to the batting line up as Dravid can play down the order. The middle order batsmen like Kaif, Raina, V.Rao, Powar etc all are of same batting techniques and including all of them is useless. Two or three of them should be rested and Team Management should give more importance to the Top order.

Shewag, Sourav, Dravid, Yuvraj, Kaif, Raina, Dhony, Pathan…
Sachin, Shewag, Sourav, Dravid, Yuvraj, (Kaif or Raina), Dhony, Pathan

These are the best alternatives available in the current ODI team

Fielding

Fielding is pathetic and fumbles, overthrows and drops were a common scene in this series. This is because of the inability to handle the pressure especially while defending a target and even the experienced captain made some fumbles which of them paid him the major penalty and the inexperienced boys also felt the heat. Throws were the worst and Dhony failed many occasions to move the bails on time. If the so-called ‘chappels way’ and so called imported ‘facilities’ and ‘facilitators’ cannot make them pressure free, Mangament should better cut the expenses and think of some other ways.

Captaincy and Game Plan

As I wrote in many mails and blogs Dravid is far from an average Captain. His inability to handle pressure is now more widen. The statistics of defending a target tells us the story. He looks clueless when the opponents are in good nick. Many times Indians look defeated well before the actual defeat. Dravid is failure in fighting back and make boys fight also. He never looks inspirational and enthusiastic in the field, and that made others lose their confidence to fight. If we analyze the statistics of the won matches, its evident that there were no close matches, and every win was well before the target. He is sluggish and he can’t make close ones into victory, rather he makes things, which look possible into, impossible. In the last England test series, the late attack to scare England is an example of that. If India started that attack a 10-15 overs before there was a good chance of winning that match. Regarding the defeat in the last test the first thing misfired was the decision to bowl first. Wankhede's history is famous about the difficulty in chasing runs in the last days. No team has ever matched such a target at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium. The highest total successfully chased at the stadium was 164 runs by South Africa against India in 2000. With all these known factors, still India went for bowling first and that was suicidal. Thus India made their worst fourth innings. One more interesting thing about Dravid's captaincy is that, in all 3 of his 4 lost matches, he had the toss. The point here is he couldn’t take the advantage of the toss as well as many of his decisions were misfired.

Lara on the other hand with a same bunch of inexperienced boys made a 5-0 white wash against Zimbabwe and a 4-1 victory against India. Lara looks very confident and inspirational through out the series and made the victory easy by playing a solid innings at the crucial time. The fielding and bowling change was exceptional and it resulted in success. Remember the decision to open the bowling in the last ODI with W.Hinds, which produced wicket in the first over. They came with a game plan in very game and succeeded in executing it. Indians in other hands, over confidant, inexperienced, and more over revolves round the experiments of a outspoken coach whose prime aim is to cover the vacuum created by absence of the experienced player Sourav Ganguly. Knowingly or unknowingly the captain is also restricted to the coach, deprived of his own ideas and vision as a leader. And ultimately that was their game plan.

Flexibility

Flexibility of Chappel can be called as experiments. Flexibility doesn’t means shuffling the entire line up every game and disrupting the natural flow of bating. The run outs and batting disaster are examples of this experiments. As Dravid tells, each failure are lessons and let Coach Chappel and his followers learn the lessons thoroughly, but they should learn everything within this eight months, before the WC. I think it’s high time to stop experimentations and fix a strong line up and start improving with its issues.

Experience

A bunch of undisciplined young boys with a vision less captain lead by inexperienced arrogant coach cannot be compensated with the absence of successful player who played almost 300 ODI matches and more than half of them as Captain. That made the real difference. India lacked experience. Chappel has no prior experience in coaching international team and even his assignment with South Australia was a failure. Lara on the other hand, executed his knowledge and experience and succeeded in wrapping the series convincingly.

Indian's chance in World Cup in Caribbean soil

Before the West Indies tour, this tour was considered as the benchmark test to World Cup for the new ‘Team India’ and their ‘Guru’ Chappel. But the team failed miserably in the exam and proved they are not yet ready and they lacked many things like experience, consistency, discipline and lots more. As far as a keen watcher (not as a Sourav fan) of this team, I can really tell you, right from the team selection, batting order, experiments; everything revolves around one major agenda. That agenda the Team Management is keeping more than team's victory and even more than World Cup. That agenda is nothing other than, ‘ending of Sourav Ganguly’. Unless and other wise they leave that agenda and look forward (not future) for the right team with right combinations, India’s chances are low and India won't be playing another WC semi-final in the next year.