AFTER A HISTORIC 1-0 win in the recently concluded test series, team India started the one day series with a shameful defeat. England beat India by 104 runs and took a lead of 1-0 in the seven match series. In this match, India was defeated by England in every department- in batting, bowling and fielding. Apart from some disciplined bowling in initial overs, nowhere did it seem like team India is playing to win the match.

Indian captain Rahul Dravid won the important toss and chose to field, as the conditions were described favourable for the bowlers. For the first eight overs, it seemed that strike bowler Zaheer Khan and his partner Ajit Agarkar are going in the right direction and England’s openers were looking under some pressure. But in the 10th over, Alistair Cook opened the face of his bat and scored 10 runs. However, in the very next over Zaheer Khan brought the first success for team India but he could not take any more wickets. The other opening bowler Ajit Agarkar was not at his best. Like his previous inconsistent performances, this time too he bowled badly and gave away 65 runs in 10 overs. Medium pacer R P Singh did some intelligent bowling but when he bowled Alistair Cook it was too late. England was in a safe position.

Right from the start of the match it appeared that England has some special game plan and they started their batting carefully. For the first 25 overs they scored at an average of four runs per over. By that time Alastair Cook and Ian Bell had settled themselves very well. Once they started hard hitting, Rahul Dravid looked helpless as India was playing without a genuine fifth bowler. Both Alastair Cook (102) and Ian Bell (126 not out) scored their maiden one- day international centuries and shared a valuable partnership of 178. After the fall of Alastair Cook, Kevin Peterson (33) joined Ian Bell and took England’s score to a massive total of 288.

During the break cricket fans as well as cricket experts shared their predictions on whether India will win the match or not. As India was playing in the match with seven batsmen, people had faith that India can chase the target. After a long time, India’s all time successful opening pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly was sent to open the innings. For first two overs, both Sachin and Saurav played well and all were expecting they would give a good opening partnership. In the third over of English bowler S Broad, Sachin Tendukar drove him for a single, but Sourav ran unnecessarily from the non-striker’s end and gifted his wicket to England.

Next, Gautam Gambhir, who was not looking comfortable, offered a simple catch to the wicket keeper to the bowling of James Anderson. In the 12th over, Sachin Tendulkar also fell to James Anderson, after scoring 17 runs and in the same over Yuvraj Singh was dismissed for a duck. By this time it became quite certain that India will lose the match. After this, Captain Rahul Dravid (46) and wicket keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (19) built a partnership of 68 runs for the fifth wicket and took India’s total over 100. In the later part of the match Dinesh Karthik made a quick 44 of 45 balls but that was not enough for India’s victory. Other batsmen-Ajit Agarkar, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan and R P Singh scored 12, 2, 20 and 0 respectively.

During the match briefing Rahul Dravid admitted that India had been “outbatted and outbowled, we have to play a lot better if we want to stay in the series. Losing four early wickets in a chase puts you under a lot of pressure.” Now the question is, if team India claims itself one of the best teams of the world then why does it lose a match without giving any fight? We have four world class batsmen, namely Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh who have scored around 40,000 runs among themselves in one day international matches. Why are they still unable to handle the pressure? ‘Master Blaster’ Sachin Tendulkar who is regarded world’s best batsman usually fails when India needs a good knock from him. Same thing applies in case of Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh too. In fact, if any two of these four batsmen give a contribution of more than fifty or hundred then no one can stop India from victory.

In this particular match, team selections were also one of the reasons for defeat. Gautam Gambhir is not at all a perfect one day player because most of the time he struggles with his foot work. Next Ajit Agarkar is around 200 matches old but he is not consistent in his bowling. I believe Munaf Patel is a better option and he should be given a chance in the next match in place of Agarkar. Gautam Gambhir must be dropped from the side.

Last but not the least, we can’t deny the fact that it was the same team India which came back strongly after a poor performance in first match of the recently concluded test series. So we have full faith on our team and player. Surely we will come back to win the next matches and the one day series as well.