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The India team as a whole has been pleading for attention for a while now. Not content with being overshadowed by Sachin Tendulkar’s apparently forever imminent 100th hundred, they’ve sought the spotlight through rank incompetence.
Well, the good news is that after getting within a handful of runs of conceding a first innings lead on the first day of a Test match, they might finally have achieved their goal. Their shoddy cricket is now more newsworthy than a Sachin milestone. That’s some achievement.
What’s gone wrong with India?
We’re struggling to make sense of India’s fall. We half-thought that maybe the fixture list just took this long to reveal an ongoing decline. Much of their stronger cricket away from home took place back in 2007 and 2008. However, that would be to overlook a series win in New Zealand in 2010 and a fine comeback against South Africa later the same year, so it’s not that.
Harbhajan Singh played a big part in that drawn series in South Africa and his oddly limp departure seems to coincide with India’s decline. For all the talk of needing fast bowlers away from home, India are best when they have a good spinner. The number one ranking was achieved thanks to his and Kumble’s labours.
But the batting’s been the big disappointment. It’s actually a malaise afflicting the entire “unit” and they seem to be deteriorating increasingly rapidly as well.
It’s like India are skiing and they’ve gone over a gentle lip only to find a giant, steepening slope beyond. Hopefully there’s a chair lift or at least a button lift at the bottom, but a few famous faces might have been flung over a cliff before they reach that particular transportation salvation location.
All part of the reason that England is number one, KC. To see this, make a list of world-class spinners playing today. Now make a list of venues where having a world-class spinner is crucial. Join the mid point of each list with a straight line. Now make a third list, this time of types of marsupial. Join the centre of this list to the intersection of the point where the line on the other two lists meets the third halfway. Fold along this line. For each name on the first list, there will then be a corresponding venue at which they are most likely to take 5 wickets (there will also be a preferred marsupial, but that is less relevant to this discussion). For England the trending vector will have a positive delta-Q. For India the result will be a pig-footed bandicoot, which does not auger well.
I had Graeme Swann in Ahmedabad that matched every marsupial name I wrote down. After twenty seven minutes I realized I had been tricked into building a mobius strip. This is nothing to be proud of, Bert. Nothing.
augur
i got as far as writing “Bandicoot” before I realised I likely had better things to do with my time. I was unlikely to realise specifically what these might be, much less act on an observation of that kind, but I decided to take my chances.
These Chinese girls-do they cook Western food?
Hey, we’re better than this. Don’t believe the media, or our performances.
we’re not better, we’re the best.
I hope one of the fall out of this string of defeats is removal of Ravi Shastri from the commentators’ box.. Can’t see a way how that can happen though..
Everything is going wrong on Aussies land.
Ravi Shastri is a better commentator than India are a cricket team.
Remain focussed on Twenty20 guys.That’s where the lolly is. 😉