Nowhere to Go

Another tour in Australia and another defeat. This is the fifth straight defeat in as many test matches outside India and that is something extremely worrying. More worrying is the fact that the mighty Indian battling line-up has seldom been able to cross the 300+ figure in a test innings since their tour to West Indies.

India was indeed able to give a fight to Australia and won a few sessions as well. Indian team may do better in the remaining three test matches on this tour but there is a big issue.....what shall be changed from the present approach? Of course there has to be more application on the part of our batsmen but can we change anyone in the squad who did not contribute much?

I think Ishant Sharma, Kohli, Laxman, Gambhir and Dhoni had pretty ordinary outing. However, out of these, the only player who may be changed is Kohli and the team management may include Sharma. I do not think that will make much of a difference. Not that I consider both of them equally bad....I consider both of them equally good. I think Kohli had a bad match but if we persist with him, he may turn out to be a better option. Of course there is no need to change Gambhir and Laxman on the basis of one bad test match. Both of them select themselves.

I am not a big fan of Ishant Sharma, however I do not think we have anyone in the squad who can replace him. Ideally I would have wanted to see Irrfan Pathan instead of Ishant Sharma but that is not possible. So, there is no choice over there.

Another person whom I do not want to see in the playing XI but would definitely play, is MS Dhoni. I do not consider him a test batsman at all. He does not have the temperament. He tries to apply 'violent tactics' to come out of tricky situations. Such tactics work in the shorter version of the games. In test matches, one has to know which balls to play and which balls to leave. Look at the way he has been getting out. Trying to slog when the team is 4-5 wickets down. Trying to drive on the up and away from the body when the situation demands cautious play. But again, I cannot even hope for an injury or upset stomach for Dhoni as I think Wriddhiman Saha is equally useless. Pappu (Parthiv Patel) would have been a much better option but I know I may be the only person in India/world/universe who holds such an opinion!!! So even that is not going to happen.

So the bottom line is that we cannot change much but only hope that the current playing XI comes up with a much better show in the remaining matches.