The Ind vs Eng tied match exposed Team India's weak bowling
The score of 338 from all quarters looked impressive and easily defendable. However, as they say about cricket, don't predict the result in cricket before the last ball is bowled - the same thing happened on super Sunday.
SUNDAY'S MATCH between co-host India and England went to the wire and in the end, ended in a tie. Nobody was the winner; however, the match threw many questions over the preparation of team India for the prestigious once in four years Cricket Word Cup tournament. Do we lack quality bowlers? Why did we fail to defend a mammoth total 338? What would have happened had we scored around 275? The match seesawed time and again, and in the end, it ended in a tie. The highlight of the day was batting maestro Sachin Tendulakar’s ton number 47, and a scintillating 158 from Andrew Strauss.
On the flat Bangalore pitch, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the all- important toss and decided to bat first as the pitch was expected to support batsmen rather than bowlers. The bating conditions were well exploited by the Indians. Tendulkar was the top scorer for India; he played the sheet anchor role, kept his wicket from one end, and also provided momentum to the scoring from time to time.
In his stunning 115 ball 120 runs, Tendulkar hit 5 pleasant sixes and ten fours. Gautam Gambhir too looked dangerous; he scored 51 in his superb 61-ball inning. Southpaw Yuvraj Singh too didn’t disappoint, he scored 58. Buoyed by the batsmens' superb batting display, the Indian team went on to amass 338 runs.
The score of 338 from all quarters looked impressive and easily defendable. However, as they say in cricket it's not over till its over. The same thing happened in Bangalore on Super Sunday. Spectators were given a rare treat high-quality cricket. Considering the mammoth score, it was India who had the upper hand in the match till the start of England’s inning.
Andrew Strauss had different intentions, he played a gem of an inning and took the game away from the Indians. Strauss as a captain led from the front and scored 158 runs, which proved key to the result. Ian Bell too played an important knock of 61. Till the 43rd over, it was England that was dominating the match - as at this point they scored 280 for the loss of only 2 wickets. After that it was cricket magic at its best till the last ball of the match. Wickets started tumbling, and the run rate soared.
Zaheer Khan who went for a ton of runs initially was again brought into attack, and he took two wickets - both Strauss and Bell were his victims. The development opened the flood gates for England and ray of hope in darkness for the men in Blue. The middle order succumbed to some good bowling. However, in the penultimate over of the game, the match again turned in England’s favour. In over number 49, Piyush Chawla gave away 15 runs including two sixes, leaving 14 runs to score in the last over. Number 10, Ajmal Shahzad, hit one six of Munaf Patel and the game again tilted in favour of England. On the last ball of the match two runs were required - the English batsman scored one thus the match ended in a tie.
The score of 338 from all quarters looked impressive and easily defendable. However, as they say in cricket it's not over till its over. The same thing happened in Bangalore on Super Sunday. Spectators were given a rare treat high-quality cricket. Considering the mammoth score, it was India who had the upper hand in the match till the start of England’s inning.
Andrew Strauss had different intentions, he played a gem of an inning and took the game away from the Indians. Strauss as a captain led from the front and scored 158 runs, which proved key to the result. Ian Bell too played an important knock of 61. Till the 43rd over, it was England that was dominating the match - as at this point they scored 280 for the loss of only 2 wickets. After that it was cricket magic at its best till the last ball of the match. Wickets started tumbling, and the run rate soared.
Zaheer Khan who went for a ton of runs initially was again brought into attack, and he took two wickets - both Strauss and Bell were his victims. The development opened the flood gates for England and ray of hope in darkness for the men in Blue. The middle order succumbed to some good bowling. However, in the penultimate over of the game, the match again turned in England’s favour. In over number 49, Piyush Chawla gave away 15 runs including two sixes, leaving 14 runs to score in the last over. Number 10, Ajmal Shahzad, hit one six of Munaf Patel and the game again tilted in favour of England. On the last ball of the match two runs were required - the English batsman scored one thus the match ended in a tie.
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My purpose of writing this piece is not ??????To-criticize??????(since there are lots of experts at work right now taking care of that section), but to reassure & elevate the floored-confidence of the Indian-fans. I can safely assure that the things are not as complicated as they all seem to be right now!
Batting-unit has performed satisfactorily, so far (However, big targets against good oppositions would be the acid-test.).
Yes! Our Bowling needs to improve, but against the currently prevalent & popular belief, I refuse to term it as our weak-link. I have 2 good reasons for that,
1. All these bowlers of ours, have practiced their skills for a large part of their lives and have been performing pretty decently on the international-stage over a considerable period in the recent-past (please do not compare their success to that of our gifted-batting line-up.) & thus it makes no sense of the idea of them losing all their abilities in a fortnight.
2. Bowling-strength, unlike in case of batting is dearly-dependent on the fielding-prowess of the team. The better the team fields, the better is the performance of the bowlers. Good fielding sides always have good-bowlers or at least are bound to produce good ones. And according to me, that is the least thing 10 guys can collectively do on-field, for a bowler. So you see! We can safely say that the fielding & bowling generally compliment each other.
Having said that about Fielding, I believe we have now arrived to the problem! (Though I do not acquit our bowlers completely, but I think they are entitled to lesser share of the blame than that is being attributed to them). Fielding by Indians has been pathetic in last 2 games (against BAN & ENG) & consequently the bowlers have suffered. It is not that Indians are bad fielders. In fact we have some world-class-fielders in our side but one must not forget that in cricket, matches are seldom won due to singular-brilliances. I could conjure 2 probable reasons for the higgledy-piggledy Indian-fielding (although there may be many others)??????
1. This is not exactly the same team that played the ODIs in the recently concluded SA-tour. Lots of our key-players missed the tour then. And hence, they are taking some time to gel as a fielding-unit. If so, I pray them to speed up the process. They cannot take eternity to achieve that.
2. Commitment of the players (especially while fielding) seems to be questionable. I say that because, I am not getting to see the Indians throwing themselves around, in the field. Perhaps, injury-scare is holding them back. For, every fielder seems to me, to be on a mission to save his best for the big-grand-impending-event, the World Cup-finals. Guys! Guys! Guys! You cannot just assume IND to be in the Finals, you have been employed to take IND in to the Finals & may be along the way IND will lose some guys to injuries but that is part & parcel of the game. Remember! World Cup like tournaments not only tests the playing-11 but also tend to test the bench-strengths.
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