Indian team arrived in Carebbean with their heads and hopes high. And why not they had every reason for that as the domestic success against england, winning streak against Sri Lanka and Pakistan gave them the right momentum and confidence to play on the pitches which they will be facing in the Cricket's mega event in less than 9 months....
The first practice match proved the fact that team is on the right track and ready for the challenge.
What followed is something every cricket fan would like to forget but sadly we cant as the turnaround this team has shown from being one of the top contenders for champions to being washed out 1-4 aginst a team which was ranked 7th. As a result the current rank of Indian team in ODI's is 5 against 3 when they started the tour.
So what went wrong?
Was it that guru greg depended too much on its "experiments" in the batting order or the batsmen became too complacent or bowlers couldn't adjust to the conditions? or may be a combination of all.
To start with, the top order didnt fire and failed to provide the start that is ideally required in an ODI. Forget about the instances where Indian team batted first, the series saw the end to the famous world record of winning continuosly while chasing. Middle and lower order that used to sail india out in the time of crisis failed to do so while crisis became a rule rather an exception for the Indian team in this series. The line up falled like a cycle stand. Batsmen like Dhoni, Raina, failed to sore and fell almost evrytime by playing a careless shot.
Dravid decided to open the innings but couldn't capitalise on the starts hence the onus fell on the lower and middle order. Though Sewag did emerged as the saving grace for the team and found his touch back, even he couldn't bail India out when required. Yuvi followed more or less the same lines of sehwag and i am sure he would not forget that last wicket bowled when India needed just 2 runs to win the match. In the these small things matter a lot and he must have realized it by now.
The bowling department looked pale with most of them couldn't bowl at the right areas. Theking of swing, Pathan couldnt take the advantage of the conditions and failed to provide the early breakthrough. He struggled through out the series and even Greg confirmed his disappointment due to non performance! Guess the pain in in his finger has become too much that he has started crying in public now....
The only exception in this department were the duo of Agarkar and Harbhajan and one sees no logic in the selector's decision of dropping the most successful bowler in the series. " Agarkar is more of a one day player" said Kiran More and obviously hardly any one bought this arguement.. well the good news is that Kumble is back in the test team and so is laxman but as i write, he resting back in the pavillion after spending little time on the crease..
I think its high time Greg must revisit his policy of experiments and focus on basics as fielding which was emerging as India's strengths in the recent past looked like a grey area this time.
So coming back to the question "What went wrong?"...the answer would be .."Well almost everything"
Well ODI's are over and now the real "Test" begins and India can save its prestige by winning the longer version...(well with 175/5 at lunch on day 1, its a long way to go...:( )
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