The Border-Gavaskar trophy has changed hands again in the span of a year, and what a year it has been! After two back-to-back humiliating defeats, the Indian cricket team seems to have taken affront to the media ritual of labeling them as warriors only at home. How? Play like one and beat Australia in a home series. True, the current world number one, South Africa, have not toured India in a while, and the number two, England, left last year after extracting further humiliation on the test team and beating us at our own game. However, the fortress had to be resurrected, newly laid with a fresh set of soldiers to guard it after the old generals bowed out (or were thrown out), and most importantly, the Indian cricket fan had to be replenished with a cornucopia of hope and enthusiasm about our prospects in the crucial away tours coming up later this year. Let me just say, it has been a good one month of test cricket as an Indian cricket follower.
The Indian cricket team, much like the Indian politics, is going through a period of major upheaval and shake-ups. While the UPA government is bracing up to the likely challenge of a Narendra Modi-led NDA in the parliamentary polls next year, the Indian cricket team is bracing up to falling expectations and glaring deficits in key areas of their game. The opening partnership of Sehwag and Gambhir, long been the Achilles heel of the Indian batting line-up, has been shunted out for a new-found Vijay and whoever-is-not-suffering-from-an-injury at the other end. Sehwag, who is now equipped with ultra vision and some extra inches around the waist, looked miserable the entire time he faced a delivery in this series, even during his rotation in the slip cordon. Never a bad time to consider other avenues towards optimizing your value to the team. Maybe he can turn into a Hafeez and work some spin magic! Gambhir, on the other hand, is still living in the Shahid Kapoor-fairyland: I will keep churning out bad movies and hope that you watch them, because you also watched Mausam and Badmaash Company with the expectations of a Kaminay. Vijay now has a golden opportunity to permanently scuttle Ajinkya Rahane's chances of upgrading from the 12th man to a regular in the test team, Poor Rahane! If he just collected the labels of all the bottles he has lugged on to the field in the last year and a half, he could have had a scrapbook thicker than all four years of an IITian's effort.
We have also reached a conclusion on the test future of Harbhajan Singh. Just in case you were living under a rock, he should cherish his 100 caps and not hope for another chance based on his current form. We are now living in the era of Sir Ravindra Jadeja, the goggle wearing, athletically daring, left-arm spinner who has taken more than a handful of all Australian wickets that fell in this series. I would not be shocked if Dhoni plays him as a specialist spinner in South Africa, where his batting would obviously fall well short of expectations. The Rajkot Ranji wicket, Jadeja's dreamland, is as far away from Kingsmead as Arvind Kejriwal is from Digvijay Singh. On a more positive note, Jadeja seems to have taken his online popularity seriously, and is on a mission to prove his detractors wrong. If only we could anoint Sir Rohit Sharma!
As a fan of the Indian cricket team, all I care for is some show of intent from our cricketers, which seemed amiss for the past year whenever we played a top tier test team. Remember how Australia are considered unbeatable at home, and how we complain about the English conditions favoring their bowlers every time? In my opinion, we should be unabashed in our proclamation of domination at home, once we are sure of it. One small step at a time towards the number one ranking!
PS: Siddle has done enough with the bat in this series to put Hughes and Warner to shame. In case you haven't seen this, he can also rip a mean one from the other end of the wicket.
The Indian cricket team, much like the Indian politics, is going through a period of major upheaval and shake-ups. While the UPA government is bracing up to the likely challenge of a Narendra Modi-led NDA in the parliamentary polls next year, the Indian cricket team is bracing up to falling expectations and glaring deficits in key areas of their game. The opening partnership of Sehwag and Gambhir, long been the Achilles heel of the Indian batting line-up, has been shunted out for a new-found Vijay and whoever-is-not-suffering-from-an-injury at the other end. Sehwag, who is now equipped with ultra vision and some extra inches around the waist, looked miserable the entire time he faced a delivery in this series, even during his rotation in the slip cordon. Never a bad time to consider other avenues towards optimizing your value to the team. Maybe he can turn into a Hafeez and work some spin magic! Gambhir, on the other hand, is still living in the Shahid Kapoor-fairyland: I will keep churning out bad movies and hope that you watch them, because you also watched Mausam and Badmaash Company with the expectations of a Kaminay. Vijay now has a golden opportunity to permanently scuttle Ajinkya Rahane's chances of upgrading from the 12th man to a regular in the test team, Poor Rahane! If he just collected the labels of all the bottles he has lugged on to the field in the last year and a half, he could have had a scrapbook thicker than all four years of an IITian's effort.
We have also reached a conclusion on the test future of Harbhajan Singh. Just in case you were living under a rock, he should cherish his 100 caps and not hope for another chance based on his current form. We are now living in the era of Sir Ravindra Jadeja, the goggle wearing, athletically daring, left-arm spinner who has taken more than a handful of all Australian wickets that fell in this series. I would not be shocked if Dhoni plays him as a specialist spinner in South Africa, where his batting would obviously fall well short of expectations. The Rajkot Ranji wicket, Jadeja's dreamland, is as far away from Kingsmead as Arvind Kejriwal is from Digvijay Singh. On a more positive note, Jadeja seems to have taken his online popularity seriously, and is on a mission to prove his detractors wrong. If only we could anoint Sir Rohit Sharma!
As a fan of the Indian cricket team, all I care for is some show of intent from our cricketers, which seemed amiss for the past year whenever we played a top tier test team. Remember how Australia are considered unbeatable at home, and how we complain about the English conditions favoring their bowlers every time? In my opinion, we should be unabashed in our proclamation of domination at home, once we are sure of it. One small step at a time towards the number one ranking!
PS: Siddle has done enough with the bat in this series to put Hughes and Warner to shame. In case you haven't seen this, he can also rip a mean one from the other end of the wicket.
