Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The bigger they are...

The second Test match ended with a whimper. In a space of 4 balls, Zaheer Khan removed 3 of the five batsmen left at Australia's disposal. The rest of the proceedings had an air of inevitability to them, and took a little over an hour to finish.

When you consider that of the 11 Indians, at least 9 had major contributions (Dravid and Laxman being the ones that missed out this time), the victory is not that big a surprise. The key will be for the Indians to sustain it. India has not won back-to-back Test matches in the same series since 2005. There is no better time, and no better opponent than Australia, to rectify that blemish than now.

The choice of the Man of the Match was MS Dhoni, more for his captaincy than his batting, I believe. The future of Indian cricket is in good hands, for now. As long as he is winning, he is fine. He has to look no further than this Indian team to know that success (or failure) as a captain can have repercussions. In the Bengaluru Test, no less than 6 players had captained India at one time or the other in Tests -Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dhoni, and Kumble! Surely this team should not be bereft of ideas when the going gets tough.

There is a big gap before the next Test starts in Delhi. Enough time for the media to whip up a frenzy. I will weigh in on whether Kumble should participate in Delhi, as a bowler or bowler-captain, later. For now, I shall continue doing what I love to do whenever India wins a Test match - surf the web and read articles about the win.

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