The way some of the Indian batsmen got out clearly showed their old weakness against accurate seam bowling - nothing new there.
Except that approximately 0 wickets fell to good seam bowling and all the wickets, bar the spinners' fell to either the short-pitched delivery or swing. There was nothing overly exciting in the pitch from a bowler's point of view but the swing made it difficult to bat FOR BOTH SIDES.
How many times have Dravid and Laxman got out to the same kind of incoming delivery? How many chances should Wasim Jaffer get in spite of throwing away his wicket after getting a start? How about Tendulkar being forever a bunny of left-arm spinners? Surely Dhoni and Kartik proved that the conditions were not as bad for batting as the rest of the batsmen made it out to be.
Karthik scored most of his runs when the conditions became sunnier in the evening session and hence there was less swing. Since you claim to have watched the second innings, you will surely notice that he struggled as soon as the ball swung, again, and was dismissed edging an outswinger. Surely that is enough proof to show that even Karthik struggled with the swing? As for Dhoni, he played and missed consistently at the beginning of his innings but he had the luck to get through.
And as for all your "how many" questions, every batsman has their weaknesses. That does not mean you drop them. If you are suggesting dropping players of the caliber of Dravid, claiming that they aren't performing up to expected levels, I am really going to have to start ignoring your posts.
Your point about Indian fans expecting too much is only a part of the tale. The way people keep forgeting the past defeats (of very similar nature) is what really allows the Indian team to remain so popular among the fans in spite of being the underperformers that they are in international cricket.
The reason that the Indian team is popular is because cricket is the only sport with enough money in it in India. I really don't think we have any right to feel that we have been cheated if India don't perform as we expect them to, just as users of Facebook had no right to complain when Facebook changed their user interface. No one has forgotten past defeats and indeed many allusions were made to situations in South Africa and West Indies where we lost a match we could have drawn just because we couldn't bat out another 30 minutes.
If fans genuinely protested against the quality of cricket by stopping watching cricket, then maybe the BCCI will get worried and start thinking about improving domestic cricket and bringing out real talented players who are groomed for international quality cricket right from the beginning. After all, BCCI treats cricket as business and the paying public are the customers. If TV rights became less valuable over time, maybe that would teach them a lesson to be worried about the actual product...
That's really the problem, isn't it? It seems to me that you feel some ownership over Indian cricket which you don't have. For me, cricket itself is more important than Indian cricket. I prefer, obviously, if the Indian cricket team does well, but I won't stop watching cricket just because they cannot perform as consistently as Australia.
So they expect a lot, get angry when India lose and then forget it when the next series starts and expect a lot again. That's why I made the point that average Indian fans don't really have realistic desire of seeing their team genuinely improve. The point is we expect a lot, but we don't hold them accountable for past performances and continue patronizing cricket.
There's nothing else to turn to, is there? Our hockey team has been performing shambolically for ages, except for an odd good tournament here and there. Our athletes and weightlifters continue to disgrace themselves by testing positive for banned substances. Chess is not exactly an exciting sport to watch. Cricket
is the only sport one can follow in India and our team is not
that bad that we should go around sulking and boycotting the game.
Some people are saying that Kumble needs to fire. I dont agree. I think the Indian bowlers did their job even when Kumble didn't fire. They restricted England to below 300 both of the times. Zaheer, RP, and Sree are a decent bowling attack. However, the batting needs a lot of help. Does India have an opener in Dravid or Ganguly? I remember that Dravid has, and often there has been talk of Ganguly opening (don't recall it happening though), but I don't know their average in that slot, but if they could, one of them could replace Jaffer and Yuvraj can get a spot lower down the order. Of course, we're taking them out of their comfort zone, so it's their decision.
To be honest, I shudder to think how RP, Zaheer and Sree will perform in conditions where there is no swing on offer. I believe we got a pretty good taste of it during the first day of play at Lord's. As for Ganguly opening, I don't think he's up to it. The new ball will bounce more and move around more, and I don't think he's good enough to see it off.
Looking back at it, and what happened after it, The Daily Mail are right, England were robbed. All papers over-exaggerate though, this is no exception.
By the same token, I can claim that India were robbed when Dravid was dismissed and that we would not have had a middle order collapse because he would have held the innings together.
Dravid has scored two half centuries in the past 12-14 games he's played.
Code:
Filter: most recent 15 matches.
Sort order: chronological.
Mat I NO Runs HS1 HS2 HS3 Ave 100 50 0
unfiltered 110 187 22 9377 270 233 222 56.83 24 47 6
filtered 15 28 3 1246 146 129 103 49.84 3 8 0
