Poor show by the Indian Team in the first One-Dayer

India is one down in the seven match ODI series against England and they have to sort out more than one thing if they want to come up with better showings in the remaining matches. Dravid elected to field first, which seemed a very good decision as the weather was overcast. We started well with the seamers bowling decent line but all the soon fizzled out. Apart from the three seamers, India had picked young Piyush Chawla as the spin option. Chawla is indeed a promising spinner; he flights the ball which certainly is a rarity these days, but he is short of experience. Plus the pitch had nothing for him. Ramesh Powar would have been a much better option but that's okay as picking Chawla was not a real bad decision. What India really missed was the fifth bowler. We relied upon Ganguly, Tendulkar and Yuvraj to do the job for us but there was nothing in the bloody pitch. It was a complete batting paradise and I think that Dravid made a wrong decision at the time of the toss. Agreed that we all thought that it was a good decision but hey......I am not as experienced as Dravid is. Plus if one has to make bad decisions and play the way Dravid did, then why am I not playing instead of him? I don't mind the job if it pays so well!!!!

If our bowling was bad, our fielding was pathetic (I have already used two adjectives, now I have to come up with another suitable one for our batting). We gave away two runs when the batsmen should have been restricted to a single. In one-dayers, that makes the difference between winning and losing.

After conceding 288, if was always going to be difficult for the Indians especially with the demons in their heads. We started off with a disaster. Can you imagine.....MONTY PANESAR....out of all the people, Monty Panesar ran Ganguly out. Panesar is an embarrassment on the field but he found his match or we should say he proved to be better than Ganguly!!!!

Sachin looked to be in good touch and was middling the ball pretty well but England did not let me to get off with some good field placements and fielding. India were soon trailing at 34/4.

After that, some senseless cricket followed. Not that there was much hope afterwards but the way Dravid and Dhoni played can not be explained. It seemed that they were trying to save the one-dayer and force a draw!!!!! When the asking rate was around 7, the "management" was scoring at 2-3 an over!!!

Dravid eventually top scored with 46 runs. If you look at the records, Dravid as top scored in many such games. It gives an impression that he was trying but he could not get support. At least I do not agree. In such matches, others get out trying but Dravid on the other hand keeps blocking and nudging. Ultimately he ends up with the highest score of the innings but what's the point of scoring at a strike rate of 50-60 when the asking rate is well above 6 an over? I have always maintained that Dravid is not the kind of player who can win us One-Day matches. He always needs someone to hit quick runs on the other end. Such matches expose Dravid but still get away with a "Captain's Innings" prize!!!!

Let us all hope that India comes up with better performances in the remaining games.