By Dr. V.V. Giri
What would you call the bunch of players who, from 267 for one in 39.4 overs, crumble like a pack of cards to 296 all out in 48.4 overs? Yes, they are nothing but Jokers!
South Africans have the habit of losing from good position during such close games and hence nick named,” Chokers”, surprisingly proved otherwise this time.
In the important group B match of this World Cup, the Chokers beat the Jokers by 3 wickets with 2 balls to spare.
Many former cricketers have come out with different reasons for this humiliating defeat. They blame the lower order batsmen, bowlers and fielders. In cricket it is quite common that due to pressure factor, various unexpected things happen. So I won’t totally blame the individual players.
Media and the captain blame Yuvraj, Pathan, Munaf & Nehra for messing up the match. What really puzzles me is, nobody is blaming the ‘poor’ or literally ‘no home work’ done by the Indian think tank. You have the main coach plus a crowd of support staff in the form of batting, bowling and fielding coaches.
They have all the time and facilities in the world to have a clear idea about the performances of our own players as well as the opponents. It is very easy to gauge the abilities and habits of different players, make a proper homework and execute the same in the matches.
There were many faults made by the Indian players. The middle order batsmen threw their wickets during batting ‘power play’, the tail failed to stay at the wicket till 50 overs, Gambir dropped a sitter, Raina / Zaheer missed a run out and the bowlers erred in line and length. All these things happen to every team and are part of the game.
In my opinion, the major mistakes made by the Indian team in the SA match were,
1. Wrong team ‘eleven’ selection – playing 3 medium pacers and only one spinner, when SA themselves bowled with four spinners.
2. Wrong timing of choosing batting ‘power play’. India should have taken the ‘Power Play’ when Sehwag was batting if not, towards the end.
3. Sending Yusuf during power play when Dale Steyn & Morkel were operating.
4. Dhoni’s wrong choice of bowling of 49th and 50th over. When Munaf bowled the 48th over and was comfortably played by the SA batsmen, Harbhajan should have bowled the 49th over and the best bowler in the side Zaheer should have bowled the 50th over. The coach could have communicated this to Dhoni through a substitute.
5. Batsmen were not coached how to play during ‘power plays’. When you take batting ‘power play’ and promote Yusuf to number four, he assumes his duty is to hit the ball as we have 8 more wickets.
6. Bowlers were clueless to bowl the slog overs and ‘power play’ overs.
7. Why captain and the coach are reluctant to play Aswin in spite of failures of other spinners and fast bowlers appears to be a mystery.
For all these major mistakes, you have to blame the coach and the captain and not the players. These mistakes are not made for the first time. Dhoni and Kirstein have been repeatedly committing the same all the time (even in the match against England) which makes me wonder whether these two are aware of the word ‘Home Work’. In international cricket, coaches do ‘perfect home work’ and they have the complete horoscope of all the players.
Shockingly Dhoni has become very stubborn and adamant. He has his whims and fancies and he does his own things. He never consults Sachin or any other seniors during crisis or making an important decision. If credit is given to Dhoni for all the matches he won, then certainly he should take the blame for the losses.
People must realize that Dhoni was lucky to win whatever ODIs India won earlier. For the tests, he must be extremely grateful to the five seniors (Kumble, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar) for lifting India to number one position in the ICC test ranking and the last three–for maintaining it.
I wonder whether coach Kirstein is doing justice to his job. When the laziest player in the Indian side Gambir praises Gary to the maximum, I can understand what is going on with the Indian team. Kirstein is happy to be friendly with the boys without troubling them. Unfortunately Board also wants a ‘Rubber stamp’ coach who does not interfere in BCCI’s coach related decisions.
Gary is responsible for making the tail bat well (by giving tough practice sessions), improvement of fielding, bowling technique during slog overs (no Indian bowlers bowl Yorkers), running between the wickets, batting during power plays, besides making captaincy decisions.
I think what the Indian team need is a “whip” in the form of tough coach and management. I feel it is time to stop this nonsense of ‘Nice coach’ theory and bring “Result oriented” coaches like Greg Chappell. Who else can I think of, except the man who brought the “winning habit” to the Indian team – Dada!
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