Left is Right

England once again exposed the Indian batsmen’s frailties against left arm spin.

The Indian test team needs to look at life after Sachin. All teams go through a rebuilding stage. Great teams plan ahead and aren’t afraid to take tough decisions. With Tendulkar not scoring runs, it is time to promote Virat Kohli at No.4 . He is the future of Indian cricket. Cheteshwar Pujara was given a chance and look at how the youngster made the most of it. With Rahul Dravid gone, Pujara got the space to make a mark and showed that he belongs and deserves to bat at No3.

Now I don’t mean that every time a senior player doesn’t perform, then there has to be a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. But at the same time, one has to understand the difference between the need to allow players space and also not allowing places in the side to be taken for granted!

Opportunities need to be given to young players to allow them to take responsibility and grow in stature and confidence. This is a long home season for India. Apart from the ODI & T20’s against England and Pakistan, India will play host to Australia for 4 Tests early in Feb-March next year. Looking ahead, it’s a great chance to give a sustained run to the younger players in the test arena in home conditions.

For the moment the combine of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir needs to be persisted with at the top! Sehwag will always be the game changer in any match. And atleast for now, with the hand eye co-ordination working well, he should remain a force to reckon with in the international arena for a few more years.

Gambhir is too hardworking a cricketer to remain without runs for long. He has the tendency to dab outside the off stump far too often for a regular opener, but he looks to make up on that deficiency with diligence. A rare quality that he possesses is that despite being an opener, he uses his feet well against the spinners. And his being a left-hander, will help India counter the spin option of Panesar as well (provided he bats long enough at the start of the innings).

With selectors looking at Ajinkya Rahane as a top order bat instead of an opener, it is a classic case of trying to fit a player into the squad rather than playing an individual at his regular position. Rahane and Abhinav Mukund need to be groomed as the second set of openers for the long run, once India start looking past Gambhir and Sehwag.

What India also needs at the moment is a solid left hander at No. 5. It is a great opportunity for Ravindra Jadeja to rise to the occasion and claim this spot, now that he has made his debut in Tests. Batting higher entails more responsibility, and having scored three triple hundreds in domestic cricket, Jadeja has shown his hunger for runs and ability to stay at the crease over long periods. Will he be able to convert this into big scores at the highest level, will be a question that gets answered in the next few months!

The Indian captain MS Dhoni’s batting in Tests is a big concern for India. Almost as big as Tendulkar not scoring runs in his last 10 innings! What India needs is Dhoni to bat at No.6 and contribute. One has to remember a certain Dinesh Kartik in his initial days not very long ago, as a keeper bat for India in Tests. His temperament and technique made you believe that he belonged at the test level.

With Ashwin scoring runs regularly, then India might have to look at him as the number 7 bat. He can bat with a fair degree of competency and if the top order contributes, then India could field 3 spinners in the playing 11 along with 2 quicks, in the form of Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma.

Maybe a long hard re-look is required by India. Because this English side has shown that it will not roll over and play dead at the mere mention of rank turners from Day One. Providing such pitches isn’t the panacea for all troubles, and one can get repaid in the same coin, as India found out much to their discomfort in the Mumbai and Kolkotta tests.

Chennai miss Mr.Cricket as Jadeja fails to live up to expectations in Season 5 opener

An 8 wicket defeat for the two time defending champions Chennai, has given them a reality check in just the opening game of the 2012 tournament! And that too in a home game at Chepauk, on an uncharacteristically green wicket with a lot of grass on it.

The lack of runs on the board highlighted the fact that in a T20 game, on a decent batting track, a team needs atleast 140 runs on the board to put up some kind of fight.

And that fight never came for Chennai. A tentative Murali Vijay with a new opening partner Du Plessis never gave the hosts the start they needed. Vijay’s 10 runs scored of 17 balls, was never the sort of innings that would inspire confidence. He looked tentative and out of sorts. With Du Plessis’ runout early on, and Vijay not able to play the role of the aggressor, it was only the fluent strokemaking of Suresh Raina that helped Chennai keep a healthy scoring rate.

James Franklin getting Vijay’s wicket in the 6th over proved beneficial for Chennai as Dwayne Bravo came out with more purpose and positive intent. The 8th over of the innings bowled by Franklin went for 14 runs, with Raina and Bravo smacking 3 boundaries in it to change the momentum in favour of the home team. Left-handed Raina’s presence forced Harbhajan to delay the advent of Ojha at the bowling crease, bringing him on in the 10th over and that immediately paid dividends, as Raina holed out in the deep, caught by Malinga for an attacking 36.

How much Chennai rely on Raina to be around in the death overs was highlighted by the fact that they slipped from 75 for 2, to be all out for 112, losing 8 wickets in the span of just 37 runs.

Credit needs to be given to Mumbai for having picked an explosive talent like Richard Levi, who lived up to his big-ticket billing, smacking an entertaining 35 ball 50 to reduce the run-chase to a benign farce. Unfortunately for Chennai, Ravidra Jadeja didn’t do anything in this game to justify the top dollars spent on him. But in his defence, it’s still early days in the tournament and all he needs to do from hereon, is forget the money spent to buy his services and try to play his natural game.

 

Delhi shines sans stars while Kolkotta choke at home

When the rains came down at Kolkotta, even the most ardent Delhi follower would have said “rain on”, as the visitors were without the services of some of their key foreign players like Mahela Jayawardane, David Warner, Kevin Pieterson and Andre Russel who are away on international duty, for this game. The Delhi side were also rendered a crucial blow with an injury to New Zealand’s Ross Taylor just prior to the start of the IPL.

A washed out game would have meant splitting points with a much stronger looking Kolkotta side, which boasted of international stars like – Brendon McCullum, Jaques Kallis and Brett Lee, along with domestic talent like the experienced Gautam Gambhir and the destructive Yusuf Pathan. For some, that might have been a better option. But then, Cricket is a funny game!

With rain abating, and thanks to a Herculean effort from the Eden Gardens ground-staff, play was made possible, albeit for a curtailed 12 overs a side match.

Now, Delhi had a real chance. Winning an important toss and putting Kolkotta in to bat only bettered their odds.

Brendon McCullum started the innings in the manner only he can, smacking Pathan to the fence for a couple of boundaries. But a bad decision by umpire Sudhir Asnani, who failed to spot the big inside edge onto pad, adjudged him leg before to Van de Merwe.

Kolkotta seemed to be in a hurry to score quick runs, maybe trying to achieve a pre-determined target of 125 odd decided in the dressing room, and paid the penalty.

Slipping from 14 without loss in the 2nd over to 55 for 6 in just the 7th over, the home team ran the risk of not even lasting the 12 overs. But a flamboyant cameo of 26 from Laxmi ratan Shukla helped KKR get to 97 for 9.

The asking rate of just over eight runs per over wasn’t going to threaten Delhi, especially if this rate only had to be maintained for 12 overs with 10 wickets in hand! Aaron Finch and Virender Sehwag started quietly, eschewing all risk and still accumulating about 8 runs per over. Though KKR managed to get the two openers with DD still requiring 41 runs, Irfan Pathan provided the impetus towards the end to help the visitors canter home to an 8 wicket triumph.

Delhi, who claimed the wooden spoon last season, started the new one with a resounding win!