Indian Cricket Hits A Nadir

Rahul Dravid with most of his fingernails gone and standing transfixed and clueless at first slip was not a pleasant sight. Take your pick, followers of Team India can be plain disappointed, get angry or keep crying all day. Well Dravid has given us flexibility here too.

There is no point in talking 'pedigree' in the line up unless thy deliver. Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly had no business in going in to a shell after the loss of early wickets. The conditions might have not been ideal for stroke play but their inability to graft and keep the scoreboard moving cost the team dear. Nearly 25,000 ODI runs between them but tied in knots by a bunch that believed that this great game revels in the moment and past records count for nothing.

Too many tactical errors cost India dear. The decision to bat was the mother of all mistakes; mind you I am not talking in hindsight. The wicket had some offer for the new ball and trying to get the batting campaign off in these conditions was not the brightest of ideas. I was sent in to eerie spin when Viru walked out to open with Sourav. What has Robin Uthappa done wrong as an opener to face this demotion?

Viru would have been better of against the slow men in the middle overs with his skill to hit inside out. With the frame of mind he is in, making him face the new ball was throwing him in the deep end. India might have suffered through the efforts of Sachin and Sourav but Yuvraj with his clean hitting gave them a ray of hope. But to lose five wickets for two runs at the death and expect to win a cricket match is like expecting five days of uninterrupted cricket in Guyana.

The target of 192 did not give enough for the bowlers on a wicket that eased considerably when Bangladesh came out to bat. Given the fact, we have one medium pacer who, after ten years of international cricket, does not have an idea to bowl six balls without offering a 'boundary ball' or slip-in a wide or a no-ball – and another, who trains his thoughts on how to glare at batsman rather than plot their down fall.

Munaf Patel was the only saving grace in an otherwise forgettable day. Keeping a tight length, he seems to have understood the science of one-day bowling. His height offers him bounce in spite of cutting down on pace. The catch Dhoni dropped proved costly in the final analysis, if India had one chance it was at that point with three batsmen already gone, India could have gone for the kill but that was destined not to be.

The knock by Tamim Iqbal was a tutor. He remained positive even though wickets tumbled around him. He was always on the lookout for runs and to me that proved seminal. Not bowling Sehwag early was another of Dravid's innumerable and unexplainable blunders. If Bangladesh can bowl 30 overs of spin against the best of that trade and come out smiling, Dravid should have learnt his lessons.

The team think tank will have some hard explaining to do. All is not lost. Rather there is nothing more to lose it can only be all or nothing from here. The team has to come out positive and learn from this failure. But there was a crumb of comfort as Ireland got past Pakistan in another shocker. The cricketing Gods might have scripted these days for the minnows - hence there was no escape route.