Day 4
A Captain is as good as his team, and a team is as conservative as its captain. Dhoni was quick to dismiss the notion of Australian tail deflating India. He is right, they not only deflated, but punctured, and flattened hopes of Indian domination in both the innings. In spite of good bowling, India was unable to gain momentum from their bowling display.
Fit to his billing, Pattinson was extremely effective as a bowler more so as a batsman as nothing more than few singles were expected of him. With Pattinson playing key role in the Wagging tail , they were able resurrect from seemingly unsubstantial score of 214/6 from day one to a very strong 333 on day two. Things did not change in the second innings either; they managed 240 runs after being at 148/6 at one stage. Quiet a batting performance from the Australian lower order. A difference of 212 runs put on by the last five batsmen in both the innings put together; comfortably more than the margin by which India lost the match. Remember India lost by 112 runs.
One aspect of lower order batting is the lack of fear against failure, they don’t mind getting out, and they don’t have to score quick runs. All that is expected of them is to occupy crease for a long time without worrying about the score board. Experiments by Indian bowlers were bound to create some opportunities now and then, as Dhoni would say,”of course the opportunities were scoring options for the Australians.”
Every fervent cricket follower might have few questions in their mind:
1) Why were India setting field for bad balls? Was Dhoni afraid of scoring a steeper target, they were anyway going to do that if they are not able to get them out cheaply. Almost 80 % of the wickets were the results of the bowlers toiling hard, not much help from the shrewd captain.
2) What can explain the inability to get the tail out cheaply when they were able to get the wickets of Ponting and Clarke with stunning balls?
INDIAN INNINGS
India always relied on Sehwag for quick starts, and the probability of Sehwag scoring high was always going to be a question in case of second innings. Gambhir attempted to play a measured innings, but eventually holed out to his regular getting-out shot. I doubt if Dravid is following Gambhir by including his own version of getting-out shot in his repertoire; the big gap that led to his undoing in both the innings.
Laxman fell playing his favourite shot; was there a plan to make him play just that? Or just a coincidence? Kohli’s expression after getting out is a common one these days, he cannot expect to question the umpire even for straight forward decisions. Looked funny in spite of disastrous situation, and it is high time someone added sense to his head sometime.
Sachin was evidently desperate , but did not look confident enough to take India home. One cannot doubt his allusions, as the man on the other end, Dhoni, was fighting himself . Ashwin looked much more assured than anyone, if not Tendulkar. He scored the maximum number of boundaries for India in the second innings, Just after Tendulkar if both the innings are taken into consideration. Ashwin has bowled reasonably well, and batted extremely well in the circumstances. What is that Ashwin is doing right with the bat? The top order needs to ask themselves. Yadav was another bowler who showed promise with his bat, but the top order should not have let him do that in the first place. Indian lower order has performed admirably, given the kind of bowling and consistent pressure from the Australian unit.
Overall, two reasons stand out as the reason for the defeat. The Indian teams inability to get through the lower order in quick time, and the collective batting failure from Indian side in both the innings. As I mentioned earlier, the team is as conservative as its captain, and no one knows that better than the captain himself. Everyone hopes to see a better performance, and it is only a matter of time before India find their feet and play a better game.
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