After the world cup victory, the Indie-Aussie series was the
one which I was most looking forward to. I even had written some blog drafts
that made fun of the Aussie players in anticipation of a close series and
optimistically thinking of an Indian victory. But then who knew Indian players
could play this "crap". Well the only reason I can think of is they had to justify
their Test team ranking of "Number 2".
I believe Dravid and Laxman in their twilight phase of their
career wanted to retire on a high after winning a series against their arch
nemesis. In an attempt to churn out a superhuman effort they failed
miserably, Laxman going through the worst plausible and possible form of his career
and Dravid missing loads of bricks in the wall like defense of his which let the ball
seep through with an unimaginable consistency. This was one such aberrant Australia
series where Laxman-Garu failed and Kan-Garu’s came out flying. Sadly it is to
be the last contest between the VVS and the Australian team.
The reason behind India despicable performance has
undoubtedly been the batting woes of Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni and Laxman. All
four of them average less than Siddle’s
batting average of 25 in the first three test and have scored lesser
runs than Ashwin. So therein lies my confusion, if the tail can wag with
such consistency then why can't seh-wag once in the last ten odd test innings he has played on foreign
soil.
Dhoni on the other hand is making an all out attempt to
prove Newton third law “To every Large Happy moment, there is an equal and
opposite amount of small sad moments lurking around” After the world cup win the notional
national sport may have touch new zeniths in its cricketing history but after
two cold dishes of four-zeroes India is in a free fall plummeting deeper than
Marina Trench.
The series ensured that Agony-path is playing to packed
theatres and when you have songs with lyrics like the following then why not.
“Honi ko UnHoni kar
de, UnHoni ko aurrrr UnHoni.
Indian
Cricket mein jamah ho teeno - Pawaaaar, IPL-Chaar-Baar aur Dhoni”
Not only did the Indian cricket team lose but the Australian
prime minister proved she is much better than the Indian counterpart. She was
in the commentator’s box and certainly put to shame Ravi Shastri cricketing
knowledge and more importantly his stymied vocabulary. All his questions were
AUDI-cious and made no sense of course. Manmohan
Singh on the other hand when he comes to a cricket stadium waves his hand
towards the crowd as if he is cleaning up the blackboard with a duster. Therein lies the
problem we have a PM who can’t speak in public, a commentator when he speaks bores
the audience out of their living daylight, batsmen who can’t bat, bowlers who
can bat but cant bowl and administrators who are hell bent to sell Indian
cricket to the highest bidder and have orgies like the IPL.
India has an inherent ability to make superhereos out of
ordinary players. Mathew Clarke comes out with a Clarke Kent performance and
Nathan Mouse turns out be a Lion only against India. Ben Hilly-Billus bowls
with speed and unforeseen accuracy and David (Warner) puts up a goliath effort.
On the other hand we have Ishant Sharma and the only thing
that swings while he bowls is his long hair,
the opening bowler Zaheer bowls well with the old ball and the spinner Ashwin who
cant spin the old ball. Now even when Sachin comes to bat you start praying to
God (the real one), please let him complete the hundredth 100 and bring an end
to this long running soap-opera which is taking CID-esque type proportions.
