Thursday, January 14, 2010

I Blame it completely on the bowlers

Well a day after team India's loss at the hands of Sri Lanka, the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni makes no delay in starting the blame game by terming all batsmen to be responsible for team India's yet another loss in the finals of a tournament involving three nations or more. My doubt is "Does Dhoni include himself in the list of the batsmen whom he refers to as culprits?" Oh! I had forgotten. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a wicketkeeper isn't it? And why should one refer to him as a batsman which is his secondary commitment. May be he has even bowled a few overs in international cricket.

But, that should not be the issue now. May be that Dhoni considers his 19 ball 14 runs that included three hits to the fence an effort worth mentioning in India's face saving 245 runs on the board. Anyway, that apart, a close look at the scorecard of India's batting line up would reveal that the batting did live upto the mark. Not only for the contributions of Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Virender Sehwag whose names get highlighted in the scorecard, but, had it not been for these three, a total of 245 that saved the face for India would be a dream far to relish.

A total of 245 was never easy to chase atleast as far as the Sri Lankan batsmen are considered and more so in today's world where in the last four tournaments, Sri Lanka have managed just one win from each tournament. Sri Lanka took their innings until 9 balls prior to completion of 50 overs with the loss of 6 wickets. None of the batsmen who made it to the crease were found being able to strike the ball confidently. Though there was a wicket falling even before the first runs were scored, India could not continue doing that for another one hour or so. A look at the Indian bowling chart reveals Sreesanth's 72 run gift that should have been more than hundred had the Sri Lankan batsmen been a little more consistent.

Sreesanth gave width outside the off stump in such a way that even the South African bowler Allan Donald would have had the batting innings of his life. Then comes the short pitched, over pitched and full tosses that could have been thrown away by someone with a little better caliber. Bad luck that Ashish Nehra had to leave his journey after bowling just 1.2 overs. And I suggest that one goes through the bowling chart thoroughly so that an idea regarding the Indian bowlers can be got. Dhoni had to rely on someone like Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja who bowled 17.4 overs between them. Had I ben in place of Dhoni, I wouldn't have tossed the ball to Sreesanth who bowled his full quota of 10 (9.3) overs.

I wonder why not did Dhoni hand over the ball to Sehwag and Raina when Yuvraj could bowl! The change in bowling has always been found to slow down the scoring initially. Atleast these were better than Virat Kohli. I wish Dhoni stand in front of the mirror and shower curses so that the stupidity is not repeated atleast in the near future.

No comments: