Ominous portents

When the India-Australia ODI series began, India's was on the verge of becoming the #1 ranked team in the world. With each passing game, Australia made it more interesting (and supposedly easier) for the takeover to occur, losing players to injury faster than one could say Venkatesh Prasad. Yet, at the end of the series, the scoreline read 4-2 in favor of the Aussies.

Bill Simmons often talks about being afraid of teams who play the "no-respect, no-chance" card. Australia was in the perfect situation - if they lost, no one would blame them, but if they won all sorts of kudos would follow. The Indians were in the no-win situation - if they won, it would come affixed with an asterisk, and if they lost.....well, we all know where that would go.

Before you slot this post into the latter category, I'd like to step back and offer some perspective:
In March 2008, India beat Australia in Australia with a team that featured the following players - Uthappa, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Rohit S, MS Dhoni, Praveen K, Irfan P, Ishant S, Harbhajan, P. Chawla.

In October 2009, India lost to Australia in India with a team that featured the following players - Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Raina, MS Dhoni, Praveen K, Ishant S, Harbhajan, M Patel, A Nehra.

The common players: Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Praveen K, Harbhajan S, Ishant S.

The 4 different players - Raina, Nehra, Patel, and Sehwag.

By common consensus:

• Sehwag is an upgrade over Uthappa
• Nehra is an upgrade over Pathan
• Raina is an upgrade over Rohit Sharma
• Patel is inferior to Chawla in fielding and batting and even-stevens in bowling.

Australia, on the other hand, had Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Symonds, Lee, Johnson, Hopes, Hogg, and Bracken in 2008. Clearly a superior team to the one that played in the recent series. Since they played so many replacements in 2009 I shall not list them all here.

So what is the difference? Palpably it was a drastic drop in the fielding standards. In the current Indian team only Raina is capable of excellent fielding. There are a few safe ones (Tendulkar and Gambhir come readily to mind) while the rest are well-below where they can or should be. There was a time when Yuvraj prowled point like nobody's business. Now he is favoring an injured knee, and it takes all he can to simply stop the ball at mid-off.

(CricInfo 2009)

Patel and Nehra are ridiculously inept. When they bowl they do not even try to come back to the wicket to back-up and glower if there is a mis-fielding. I have been observing Nehra for years now and he has not improved at all in either batting or fielding. Munaf Patel looks so lethargic, simply looking at him will make a batsman contemplate a single.

Overall, the attitude of the players was a strange one. In the 6th ODI, India struggled at the start, then Dhoni and Jadeja slowly (some might say a little too slowly) nurtured the score along, and then Praveen Kumar took off. With 15 balls to go, the score was at 170 for 8, Praveen Kumar was at 54 in 51 balls, and Nehra swung wildly and lost his stumps. Munaf Patel was fortunate to not get out next ball, stepping away from the stumps, but rather than learn from this, he simply repeated the error and the stumps went for a walk. Just like that 170 all out with 12 balls still to go, and Praveen Kumar still on 54 not out.

What were the thinking?! I am not sure anyone knows. And that epitomized the Indian team's attitude about the series. I am glad they did not win the series on the basis of Sachin's solitary gem. It would have papered over the cracks.

At least now the selectors can think long and hard at the team selection and come up with some viable solutions. But then they announced the Test squad to play Sri Lanka and all hopes I had of a thoughtful selection for any upcoming ODI series was squashed (more on that in my next post).

MS Dhoni will not be lifting the 2011 World Cup unless the following changes occur:

• One-skill players (Patel, Nehra in particular) are jettisoned or they pick up half-decent secondary skills.
• Sachin Tendulkar stops paying attention to milestones and bats without pre-determining what he will do to the ball before it is bowled. (And if he claims otherwise, then he is a liar).
• Harbhajan Singh is not automatically penciled in as the #1 spinner. In my estimate, he is behind Ojha, Mishra, and Jadeja in the current Indian setup. As DSC/BF pointed out once, Harbhajan is the classic bully - all over a team if he senses they are weaker than him, but bowling flatter and on the leg-stump , afraid to have his analysis ruined, if he plays a good team.
• Virender Sehwag lasts longer than 30 runs or 15 minutes.

Here is a comparison of the performance of two batsmen in the series:
Batsman A: 14 (29) Batsman B: 34 (46)
Batsman A: 4 (8) Batsman B: 124 (107)
Batsman A: 32 (47) Batsman B: 71* (95)
Batsman A: 40 (68) Batsman B: 26 (46)
Batsman A: 175 (141) Batsman B: 6 (15)
Batsman A: 10 (23) Batsman B: 24 (77)

Of course, anyone who followed the series knows who the two batsmen are. All the talk has been about this Indian team resembling the one from the 90's - Tendulkar standing alone while the deck burns around him. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the reality is that apart from the 175 in Hyderabad, Tendulkar had a very average series. His first 4 innings were labored ones, with the looming 17,000 mark preying on his mind, costing the team dearly.

Here's Prem Panicker's take on this and I was thinking this even as I was following along (bold text for emphasis is mine):

The fourth game in the series, November 2 at Chandigarh, was the seminal moment of the series. India was 2-1 up and looking to take the definitive lead. A brilliant bowling performance backed by fielding that was un-Indian in its athleticism restricted Australia to 249. India's target, on a wicket where the batting conditions were perfect, was 250 to win off 300 balls -- a 50-run differential in the team's favour. Opener Virender Sehwag skewed the arithmetic even further with 30 off 19 balls, reducing the target to 220 off 281 deliveries. India lost by 24 runs and allowed Australia to level the series -- and the key stat that jumps out at you is this: Sachin Tendulkar 40 off 68 -- an innings that contained six fours, but also 50 dot balls. In other words, Sachin's inexplicably stodgy knock single-handedly wiped out the advantage India had taken into the chase.

(...)

Tendulkar started the series needing 137 runs to achieve the statistical landmark of 17,000 runs. Even the most ardent fan will concede that the milestone a largely pointless one from a team point of view, and a largely superfluous one for an individual who, by reason of achievement and longevity both, 'breaks' some record or other each time he walks out to bat -- had, for the course of the first four games, become a millstone around the batsman's neck, forcing him into an ultra-defensive mode that militated against the larger requirements of the team he was part of.

(...)

Move on, now, to November 5 and the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium at Uppal, Hyderabad where an adrenalin-fuelled batting performance by Australia left India facing an unlikely, almost impossible, target.

India needed to get 351 in 300 balls; Tendulkar needed 7 runs to attain his personal milestone. For 16 deliveries, the master batsman pushed, poked and prodded until finally, off the last ball of the fifth over, a clip off the pads through square leg produced three runs that took him past his target. It was only then, with the mind freed of personal ambition, that he felt himself free to turn his attention to the team's requirement..

Another blogger, Greatbong, has similar views on the ODI performance and points out some that I have not picked on specifically.

In the end, what gets our collective goat is that this team is capable of much better efforts but for a myriad reasons, some stated but many unstated, just does not seem to be putting its best foot forward of late.

At this rate, only a freakish brilliant ephemeral performance by the squad will bring the World Cup to India.