Some questions for Team India as they take the flight back home:
* Can't play the short ball on a fast pitch, can't play spin on a slow track. Where can you play?
* Why did Pragyaan Ojha not play today?
* Why was Ishant playing? In this match ... perhaps even in this tournament.
* Where did that fearlessness go?
* In today's match, why couldn't you just consolidate during the spin overs and save your wickets?
* Is Kirsten right about fatigue?
* Why was the thinking so muddled as far as the batting order is concerned?
* Should we blame the IPL & Lalit Modi, and not you?
* Should we blame the media & not you?
* Why was the fielding so bad throughout the tournament?
* Why was the pace bowling so bad throughout the tournament?
* Why did you i.e the "new stars" of Indian cricket seem not much more than faulty bulbs bought from the local store?
* Dear Prince, what happened to your fielding (thanks for your batting though)?
* Quo Vadis Mahi?
Taking Stock
1 hour ago
25 Maidens bowled!!:
Harsh Leela... bet you didnt have the same to say when we beat Pakistan in the warm ups.
Cheers,
* Can't play the shot ball on a fast pitch, can't play spin on a slow track. Where can you play?
On flat batting tracks.
* Why did Pragyaan Ojha not play today?
We wanted to prove we could win with the same XI.
* Why was Ishant playing? In this match ... perhaps even in this tournament.
He is the best bowler in India's history.
* Where did that fearlessness go?
Your expectations took it away.
* In today's match, why couldn't you just consolidate during the spin overs and save your wickets?
We were confident we could attack the spinners.
* Is Kirsten right about fatigue?
No. Fatigue is a part of the game. It really spoils the party for me if someone says they are not up to it cos they are tired.
* Why was the thinking so muddled as far as the batting order is concerned?
Look at my history. I have always been flexible with the batting order. It has always worked. This time it didn't.
* Should we blame the IPL & Lalit Modi, and not you?
No. The IPL was a great experience. It gave us good practice for the World T20.
* Should we blame the media & not you?
Media is useless. We are better off ignoring them.
* Why was the fielding so bad throughout the tournament?
We didn't practice hard enough. Our sessions were optional so many did not turn up so we really didn't pay attention to fielding sessions.
* Why was the pace bowling so bad throughout the tournament?
Only Ishant was a bit expensive, besides him our bowling has been fine. The problem is the batting.
* Why did you i.e the "new stars" of Indian cricket seem not much more than faulty bulbs bought from the local store?
Not from the store but ur homes.. we have shone brightly for way to long across a 100 million homes all over India.. we were bound to flicker after such a long time.
* Dear Prince, what happened to your fielding (thanks for your batting though)?
I'm gaining weight. Eating too much cos there's no girl in my life to look after me. I'll be back after a fling or two.
* Quo Vadis Mahi?
Home to sleep.
Homer,
Harsh indeed, but I guess its the disappointment speaking.
:-(
Once the anger subsides will perhaps regret the harshness even!
bet you didnt have the same to say when we beat Pakistan in the warm ups.
Yup because that was a warm up game and Pak wasn't really on top of its game yet.
P.S. To my credit, I haven't burned effigies.
;-)
Q,
Thanks. As always great answers.
we have shone brightly for way to long across a 100 million homes all over India.. we were bound to flicker after such a long time.
Aww... thanks for saying that.
Did I mention I'll be rooting for .. in the semis? I better not say it Q.
:-(
* Flat pitches? Don't worry, most of the players were out of form so this was expected against teams that planned and executed.
* Because Harbhajan is the alpha-male in the side.
* Because all the pace bowlers had struggled throughout and it was a lottery to pick anyone.
* The whole attitude/fearlessness thing was built up because we were winning. Now the side will look meek/timid because it's losing.
* Because the spinners bowled brillianty, tossing the ball up and beating the batsmen in flight.
* He mentioned it before the tournament so he's atleast consistent even if not right.
* Looks muddled because we lost. We were having a flexible batting order even before this.
* Absolutely not. Almost all the South Africans and Sri Lankans played in the IPL too and both teams have won all their games.
* Blame the media for acting precious and providing an unnecessary distraction.
* Bigger grounds, overweight players, gruelling schedule since October.
* Unfit Zaheer, greenhorn Ishant, stubborn Harbhajan. Bad fielding.
* Placid pitches and shorter boundaries made them look better. Besides, Sharma has flattered to deceive for quite a while and Raina isn't the finished article either.
* Prince looks like he's been enjoying himself. You don't have to look beyond his double chin (actually you can't) to see he's not fit.
* Bad form, maybe bad back.
To be fair to Kirsten, he did mention BEFORE the tournament started that the team has been a little too over-worked in the last few months. It's not something he has pulled out of the hat after we got kicked out.
And I am inclined to agree with him. It's not just the IPL; we've been on the road for almost seven months now without any break, so yes, fatigue is definitely a factor.
I'm not suggesting that's the only reason we lost, but one of the main causes, surely.
Another interesting point Kirsten made was that the IPL is, after all, a domestic tournament, and the step-up in quality at the World Twenty20 caught them off-guard. He was suggesting that the team had been lulled into a false sense of confidence after their IPL exploits.
Good, honest reasons.
I would add one more to the tally - losing Sehwag was a big, big blow. Going into a tournament with a make-shift opener will fail more often than not, especially in T20, where a good start is so important.
Is it the IPL's fault that we lost Sehwag and Zaheer? No.
Australia lost Shane Warne the night before the 2003 World Cup and still went undefeated, so skedaddle all those excuses about being without Sehwag. Pshaw!
I see this time and time again...the spinners bring the game back and the captains (ALL of them) then use the pace bowlers in the death. Huh? Why is the spinner good enough to bowl only the middle (and sometimes the opening) overs?
I was hoping MSD would swing away from ball one just for kicks. Instead he just reverted to recent-MSD-ism. What was the point to that?
And that IPL fatigue? Well, they now get a few days extra off! I bet they use those days to shoot a few more commercials. Bling, bling.
I hope they revolt if Lalit Modi goes through with his idea of having two IPL seasons and more teams. But they wont. The IPL is a useful excuse for failure but heaven forbid if they then pace themselves because of it.
Jaunty
Comparing the Australian ODI team of 2003 with this Indian team is a touch out of realism mate.
That Australian side was more than capable of absorbing Warne's loss. For bowling they had Mcgrath, Lee ( in the form of his life), Gillespie,until he got injured mid way, where in Andy Bichel stepped in. And for spin - they had a decent replacement in Brad Hogg.
Much as the team wouldn't want to admit it, in the Super 8's Sehwag was definitely missed. He's a player with an X factor. he might only make 10 runs, but would do so in say 3 balls. That kind of start would upset most bowlers.
Anyways - I don't think exiting this tournament this early is bad for the team. Once in a while a reality check does no one harm.
Unless of course you are the Australian team of the late 90's - early 2000's. Those guys defined what CONSISTENCY and CHAMPIONS are all about.
Jaunty,
In addition to TG's well-raised points, I'd like to add one of my own.
It's much easier, generally speaking, to replace a bowler in a Limited Over form of the game. The shorter you make the game, the less important any single bowler becomes. Batsmen, on the other hand, become more and more irreplaceable.
That's where the maxim, "Batsmen win you one-dayers, bowlers win you test matches" comes from. In a Limited Overs game, you can make do with average bowlers if you have a good batting line-up. In test matches, you NEED attacking, wicket-taking bowlers.
If Australia had lost Adam Gilchrist (or Matthew Hayden) during the 2003 World Cup, I suspect they would have struggled a lot more than they did. So yes, we did miss Sehwag. No two ways about it.
And it's not IPL fatigue, Jaunty. India has been on the road since January. It's fatigue caused by seven months of non-stop cricket, which started way before the IPL.
So nobody's blaming the IPL for anything. It would be wrong to.
Mahek,
* Because all the pace bowlers had struggled throughout and it was a lottery to pick anyone.
So we could have gone with just two pace bowlers: Zak and RP, and retained Irfan to strengthen the batting. And included Ojh.
This means, JJ and Ishant would have to sit out.
Sharath,
I do remember Gary talking about the fatigue factor prior to the ICCT20 thinggy.
Jaunty,
Agree about the spinner bowling last over. I mean does it say in the Bible that only a fast bowler can?
TG,
Once in a while a reality check does no one harm.
I am using that line to convince myself.
Sigh.
Jaunty, I agree with you in what you have to say about spinners. Wasim Akram regularly used Saqlain Mushtaq in the death, and I don't remember him ever being smashed out of the ground.
I think if a spinner is good enough to bowl in the 'middle overs' of a T20, he's good enough to bowl at the death.
Come to think of it, MS did use Harbhajan to regularly bowl a couple in the last five during the previous World T20. I wonder what has changed.
Sharath,
I disagree. Short format or long- bowlers matter. Perhaps equally so in T20.
Of course, pitches matter too. I am all for bowler-friendly pitches (swinging/seaming/bouncy/turning...) that will make T20 more fun.
:-)
No, I won't blame the IPL either since it has had positive affects too.
Leela,
Of course bowlers matter in all formats. But the lines between a good bowler and a very good bowler become very blurred when you move from a test match environment to a one-day environment.
Warne was an excellent test bowler because he was attacking and looked to take wickets, but he was nowhere near irreplaceable in the one-day format; not because he was any less as a bowler, but because of the nature of the format. In One-Dayers, you can get by and win a fair few games without ever looking to take a wicket. New Zealand has been doing it for twenty years now :-)
But good batsmen, especially game-changing ones like Sehwag and Symonds (see how much Australia struggled without him?) are irreplaceable in the shorter formats, though in the longer format of the game, their absence is felt a little less.
As a general rule, the importance of a world-class, wicket taking bowler lessens considerably when we move from Test Matches to ODIs, and lessens further when we move from ODIs to T20s.
That's why comparing our loss of Sehwag in this tournament to Australia's loss of Warne in WC 2003 is NOT appropriate. Comparing it to Australia's loss of Symonds in this year's WT20, is.
TG and Sharath,
I agree with your point that an opening batsman, explosive at that, is probably more disruptive than a spin bowler, albeit the best of all-time. Granted.
But the point I was making is that we did not go from being champions to utter failures because of Sehwag. That is a convenient excuse being trotted out, that's all.
The 7 month continuous play reason does not work for all the players on the team - GG, MSD, ZAK, HS, and IS are the only ones who are a shoe-in in all 3 forms of the game for India. The rest had ample rest...except in the IPL.
Jaunty, yes, you're right.
But the difference between champions and 'utter failures' is so small in this format, isn't it? All three games were close - West Indies only got away from us in the last four overs, England won by 3 runs, and against South Africa, we only needed - what? 12 more runs?
Having said that, though, Sehwag is only ONE of the reasons we didn't do well in this tournament. We should have, if everyone played to their potential, been able to cover for his absence. But we haven't. Simple as that.
Jeez we were nowhere close to winning any of the three games. The Windies one didn't even go to the last over. Against England we need 19 off the last over, against South Africa the number was 21.
And I totally disagree on the importance of bowlers decreasing with a decrease in the number of overs. It's just that teams have been overly defensive all this time. This hasn't been the case in this world cup. Three of the four semi-finalists have wicket-taking bowlers for every stage of the innings. India had only one, and they dropped him after the first loss.
Mahek,
Only in a T20 match can bowlers like Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma take hat-tricks.
You don't have to be a genuine attacking, wicket-taking bowler to be successful at Limited Overs cricket. Hence the likes of Brad Hogg can replace the likes of Shane Warne.
But you DO have to be a genuine attacking batsman to be successful at Limited Overs cricket (though you don't have to be technically correct). So replacements for guys like Sehwag and Symonds are hard to find.
So when it comes to Limited Overs cricket, an attacking batsman is a much, much bigger loss than an attacking bowler.
When it comes to tests, the reverse is true.
That's why they say "Bowlers win you test matches, batsmen win you one-dayers."
As for how close the matches had been, I admit I haven't watched any of them but the margins of defeat suggest the games could have gone either way - it was a matter of ONE good/bad over somewhere.
Example: With 39 to win of 4 against the Windies, it was just a matter of one good over.
Against England, the margin of victory was 3 runs - you can't argue that wasn't close
Against South Africa, we only lost by 12 runs, so once again, one good over somewhere in the middle would have got us home.
So I stand by what I said. The games WERE close.
Anybody who watched those games knew none of the matches were close.
Coming to batsmen, India won the last world cup without any sizeable contribution from Sehwag. Even Yuvraj had just two good games. In fact, he didn't even play the one against South Africa.
Brad Hogg was anything but a restrictive bowler. He was very much a wicket-taking bowler. FYI, he has a better average and strike rate than Harbhajan and Kumble in ODIs. He never got to play test cricket during his best years so we'll never know if he would have been a brilliant test bowler.
I'm sick of cliches like "Batsmen win you ODIs, bowlers win you tests". It is utterly ridiculous to imagine a side can be worldbeaters with deficiency in one of the departments.
Look at the two best teams in this World Cup. Dale Steyn, Wayne Parnell, Johan Botha, ROFL are all wicket-taking bowlers. Even Duminy bowls with a loop and flight any off-break bowler would dream of. Sri Lanka have Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis. All of them are always looking for wickets. Pakistan with Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal aren't far behind.
Last but not least, I'm going to leave you with the immortal words of Ian Chappell,"No batsman can score runs from the pavilion".
Sigh, I don't know what it is with me and arguments :-)
Okay, Soldier, here goes:
You didn't think the games were close? Okay, your opinion. I maintain all three games were a matter of ONE good over/bad over (depending on which side you're on).
A close match doesn't necessarily mean it has to go down to the last over. The margin of victory usually gives you a very good indication.
Anyway, your point of view, so let's not squabble over that.
Now, about bowlers - first, some context. Jaunty compared us losing Sehwag to Australia losing Warne in 2003. I was pointing out it's not the same. A better comparison would be Australia losing Symonds this year. Why? Because both Symonds and Sehwag are attacking, game-changing batsmen. And Jaunty agrees.
I am not saying wicket-taking bowlers are not required in Limited Overs Cricket. They are, and they're very useful too. All I am saying is, you can be a very good one-day side (and a very good T20 side) without any attacking bowlers in your side.
Examples? New Zealand. India until 2003.
But you CANNOT be a good one day team without attacking batsmen in your team. The loss of one, especially at the top of the order, is usually disastrous.
"I'm sick of cliches like "Batsmen win you ODIs, bowlers win you tests""
It's not a cliche, it's the truth. Do you think it's a coincidence that all world-beating test teams in history had awesome bowling attacks?
But again, if you don't agree with me, that's fine :-)
And if you think we didn't miss Sehwag, that's fine too. After all, we have no way of checking it
As far as I can remember there have been two worldbeating sides in the history of test cricket.
1.West Indies - 1979 to 1995 with Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Garner. Heard of Haynes, Greenidge, Richards, Lloyd, Richardson? Think they played around the same time, no?
2.Australia - 1999 to 2008 with McGrath, Warne, Gillespie, Lee. Oh wait, they also had Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Waugh twins, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist.
So yes, it is indeed a cliche. No side can be successful unless it has world class batsmen, bowlers and fielders. To overlook the importance of any of these facets would lead to mediocrity.
While the loss of Andrew Symonds was huge, it was magnified because they had a weak squad in the first place. Hell if you had a match between the Aussies who played the IPL and their world cup squad, the former would beat the living hell out of the latter.
As for close games, we agree to disagree.
Soldier, you rattle off names of TEST teams. Great bowlers ARE NEEDED for test teams.
Sri Lanka 1996, India 1983, NZ 1992, were successful at LOI WITHOUT the need for attacking, wicket-taking bowlers.
You don't NEED attacking, wicket-taking bowlers to be successful at LOI. You do for test match cricket. It's the truth. If it's a cliche, so be it. But it's also true.
Again, let's just agree to disagree and stop arguing :-)
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