Will we, wont we?. that s the only big’q’ that comes to mind when India undertakes yet again one of the toughest sojourns ever, ie the tour down under. The task is almost like a few mice, trying to snatch away cheese under the presence & watchful eyes of a few ferocious cats. The cats BELIEVE in them, are as wily as foxes & also have gr8 amounts of faith, positive energy & resilience in’em. well.wt bout the mice.they r a few experienced guys who have snatched the cheese & made a fool out of the cats sometimes. But not for long, as the mice army has all new recruits & a new coach, new training programs etc etc. The cats, well.they have till now clouted the micey attack whenever a battle has engaged between the 2. The mice sometimes snatched matches like the recent one at Gwalior & tht too owing to home conditions. So where do all these, ’on paper, on field’ records take them? the answer though simple, ie defeat is a tuf one to analyse.
Everyones been gr8ly lookin fwd to these series & india-n-the mighty ozzies really make 4 tuf opponents. so b4 the home team of ours leaves 4 ozzieland, we gotta know some facts tht have accorded us defeats whenever we have toured’em. The aussies r really a very professional. side. When u visit their website & read the rules regd the selection policies, one gets to know how players r awarded with a place in the national side with selection based on pure merit & performance. plus, the cut-to-cut pitches, 5 star ground facilities & superb planning of local tournaments is wt makes the aussies so invincible & even when they replace in-form players, they r not perturbed abt the subsies coz as Ponting sed recently, ’ our substitutes r world class’ & truly, y not. The recent TVS series is a reminder of the fact tht when their substitute players can play so good on alien conditions, what will happen when we shall play on alien conditions, ie ozzieland of course. Even the Aus’A’ sides r so very competitive tht I caught this quote by Barry Richards during the world cup, which says…’the Aus’A’ team shoud also get a place in the world cup as they r equally good as the national side!.’ We can make out frm this, how much level of competency exists there, rather than dirty politics at play & in selection.
Now come to India.oops! ‘team India’, right? but don’t u think this tag doesnt fit alright now taking into consideration the recent performances against New Zealand & the tvs triseries. It was with the help of the big guns tht India cud notch up big scores or even chase. wt bout the rest of the guys like Yuvraj, Kaif. They really’outperformed’ as their reebok ads wud rather spk for themselves!
The best thing abt my land is tht we have a large pool of talent, but we have reckless fishermen who r not able to catch a few gem-like fish & put them in the right grooming grounds.The dirty politics & the erratic selection process based on personal opinions make all this, sadly. but, a waste. A few months bck, I read in a local sikkim newspaper tht the state has a young paceman who notches up speeds uptp 163 k’s per hr. now.if thts eye opening for news, hw good it ll be if such guys r atleast given a chance.but this is India.yahan pe kuch bhi ho sakta hai aur kuch nahi bhi! as such tags find an appropriate place in our country.
So where does all this take as.as we say, we gotta take inspiration frm the past, work for the future, by becoming aware in the present. The Indian teams performance at the world cup was really gr8. But the team isnt maintaining the form as of now. As someone rightly sed, ’ Form is temporary, class is permanent.’ This very well applies to a few genuine players around the globe.
In the Aussies, r genuine match winners like Harvey, Bichel, lee & many others who really enjoy their work on the field( on India’s last VB series I spotted a spectator holding a prop up saying, ’ love ur work & enjoy it more.).As a good e g, was in the last match when it was a tense Harvey over & Dravid wnted to place the ball over Gilly, but Harvey came up to the crease, & didn’t deliver the ball & Gilly-n-Harvey just burst out laughing-n-smiling(as one cud clearly hear it thru the stump microfones). So it really pays as u enjoy ur work & when one enjoys doin his work, he doesn’t have to work for it! so, as far as the preps for the tour to ozzieland go, irrespective of the TVS series result, they’ll have to be really focussed upon with lots of hard work & the players gotta njoy the conditions there, coz the conditions will suit’em more if they play according to ‘em.
So, Indians will really have to deal with xtra bounce, pace & turn. There have been quite a few q’s around the town regd the team selection to aussieland & the selectors threw up a list of 20 probables, few days bck. Lets try to analyse’ em with hints of ref. with India’s last tour.
*The captains: Ganguly(now) & Tendulkar(then).
*The openers: Sehwag & Chopra(now) & Ramesh-Gandhi(then)
*Mid-order: Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly, Patel/Dasgupta(now) Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly, M prasad/ Dighe, Bharadwaj(then)
*The bowlers: Nehra, Khan, Singh, Agarkar, Kumble(now) & srinath, Prasad, Kumble, Agarkar(then).+ Kanitkar, Mohanty, Jacob Martin, Sunil Joshi, N.Chopra & Robin Singh in the ODI’s.
So.goin by this, half the team has some sorta xp under their belt of ozzieland( yeah! they enjoyed the beaches, the wild-n-nightlife, the food etc etc.!)
The selectors(under mr. Borde) were on the hunt for some potential all rounders till now, & the entire scenario has changed since Kirmani & co. have come in as, they r now gunning for a specialist wkt.keeper( HAS THE DEFINITION OF THE TERM, ’ALL ROUNDER’, changed for’em!) & Sanjay Bangars exclusion is very surprising as he was INSTRUMENTAL in the squaring of the series in England. Was he dropped on merit OR personal bias? Y the hell they selected Dasgupta? Ask the riddler!
SEE COMMENTS FOR THE FURTHER WRITEUP.