Sydney to Sydney, Perth to Perth

[SachDan]

By Siddharth Vaidyanathan (@sidvee) Outsmarted at Melbourne, outclassed at Sydney and outgunned at Perth. India started this tour with, what many called, their best chance of winning a Test series in Australia. They will end it in shambles. Four years ago a big chunk of this team traveled to Australia. They had been outsmarted in Melbourne. Dravid, asked to open, was struggling to put bat on ball; Laxman was suffocated and Tendulkar dazzled with a first-innings fifty before falling to an expansive stroke. India, bogged down by maidens, struggled to score at much more than two an over in the second innings. Just as in the 2004 series in India, their batsmen were frustrated out. At the end of the match, Kumble spoke of the fine line the team needed to tread: to try and score freely, yet not venture into irresponsible territory. The late Peter Roebuck summed it up when he said: India need to meld beauty with grit. There was a further blow on the eve of the Sydney Test: Zaheer was ruled out, leaving India with a new-ball pair with a combined experience of ten Tests. And to top it off Australia, on the verge of a record-equaling 16th consecutive Test win, won the toss. The odds were stacked as high at the Harbor Bridge. But nobody told RP Singh about this. In only his ninth Test, he made up his mind to lead the attack and turned in two inspired spells. Ishant, in just his third Test, ran in hard and induced an edge off Symonds when he was on 30 (his reaction to being denied the wicket was to try and bowl faster). On a day dotted with horrific umpiring and a belligerent partnership, India kept striving. They were down but those walking in for the second dayÃÔ play knew they were far from being out. Then came the fightback. Laxman brought the beauty, Dravid came with the grit. One scorched crisp cover-drives, the sweet sound of leather on willow prompting gasps across the SCG; another played, missed, edged, blocked, played again and missed again. One flew, the other dodged. Here was beauty, in all its splendor, melding with hard-as-nails grit. The series was alive. None of this would have mattered if not for what followed: Tendulkar arriving with masterful control. This was not a diamond-studded half-century but an immaculately paced hundred. Like a perfectly-oiled machine, the gears neatly enmeshed, he gradually clawed India back. India led by 69 in the first innings. This team was kicking. Three days later, they were flattened. Defeated in the gloaming, done in by shoddy umpiring and insulted by an opposition captain who didnÃÕ see the need to shake hands with his counterpart at the end of the match, India endured what was possibly their most painful Test defeat. One of the younger players in the team, his head bowed, sitting distraught in the dressing-room, felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Kumble. His message was brief: ŸeÃÃl win at Perth. And win they did. Barring perhaps Kolkata in 2001, no Indian Test victory could have been scripted against such odds. Australia hadnÃÕ lost at the WACA since 1997; India had never won there. The pre-match talk was about pace, pace and more pace. Shaun Tait was set to be unleashed as Australia aimed for win No. 17. India won the toss. Conventional wisdom suggested they field. Kumble chose to bat. Dravid, back to No.3, regained his confidence, Tendulkar innovated, those magical wrists guiding short balls over the slip cordon, and Laxman showcased his steely side. RP continued to lead the attack manfully and Irfan Pathan, making a comeback, swung the ball at delightful arcs. Ishant devoured Ponting in that spell and the tail wagged RP adding valuable runs with Laxman as India stretched the lead in the second innings. Adelaide followed. An even contest deservedly ended in a draw. A series that had begun like a nightmare ended with plenty to cheer. Sydney and Perth were inflection points: it was a point from which Australia lost their aura, the team losing its sheen with every series that followed. For India, it was the start of an ascent. They won the one-day tri-series that followed. Many players, including Dhoni, has spoken about the effect that the tour had on the players, the confidence they gained in battling adversity and the satisfaction in clawing back from what was seemingly an abyss. Sydney and Perth in 2008 epitomised the Indian Test side of the last decade. These were teams which rose to the top by finding a way to fight back; by putting behind a demoralising defeat; by disrupting the oppositionÃÔ rhythm when the bowlers were on top (Sehwag at Galle, Laxman at Sydney); by scrapping when the pitch was hard (Dravid in Headingley and in Kingston, Tendulkar in Nottingham, Gambhir in Napier); by seeking battling performances from the tail (Nottingham, Sydney, Adelaide, Kingston); by the dint of rookies exceeding expectations (RP, Ishant, Dinesh Karthik, Sreesanth, Bangar, Irfan); by believing that they will only improve as the series goes along; by understanding that beauty means nothing if not infused with grit. And here we stand in 2012 when an Indian team has competed in Melbourne, shriveled in Sydney and collapsed in Perth. Zaheer and Sehwag have been fit for all Tests and Dravid hasnÃÕ needed to open. Ishant has more than 100 Test wickets now and Dhoni despite the shellacking in England and here remains, statistically,? IndiaÃÔ most successful captain. The team had two practice games before the tour and were up against an Australian side in a transition a side that will struggle to match up to the Australian squad from 2008. These results are not purely a matter of ability. Zaheer is a far more capable bowler than RP and Irfan; Gambhir has a far better Test record than Bangar, Karthik and Chopra; the crux of the batting line-up knows what it takes to win Tests in Australia; Dhoni knows what it takes to win cricket matches; and the bulk of the tail Ashwin, Zaheer and Ishant are more than capable of sticking around than many of their recent predecessors. This was supposed to be a team that had a judicious mix of youth and experience a chance for the old guard to say a cheerful goodbye as the young guns took charge. And yet itÃÔ all up in smoke. You can analyse the defeats until the cows come home, you can debate the merits of selection, you can dissect DhoniÃÔ captaincy threadbare, you can grapple over an apparent flaw that has crept into DravidÃÔ technique, you can criticise Kohli for not seizing all his chances, you can curse the hype over TendulkarÃÔ 100th hundred, you can slam the IPL, you can hurl your kitchen sink at the BCCI, you can list umpteen ways in which domestic cricket can be revamped, you can wonder if India is even prepared with a succession plan once the veterans retire and you can question what Duncan Fletcher has brought to this side (if he has brought anything at all). But I am more interested in that one quality thatÃÔ gone missing. Call it belief, call it bounceback-ability, call it an unshakeable resolve, call it a desire to reverse the tide, call it the X-factor, call it anything. I am more interested in when and how this side lost its ability to fight the odds. I am not suggesting the players arenÃÕ trying. That has never crossed my mind. But itÃÔ quite clear that something intangible is missing. Some have called it ÃÉunger? others say itÃÔ called ÃÃ…esire? I am not going to invent a new term here but, as someone who has watched IndiaÃÔ Test side over two decades, I sense a gaping absence. IÃ×e missed the Ganguly-inspired ballsiness. IÃ×e missed the ÃÇuck you mode that John Wright asked the team to adopt during the 2003 World Cup. IÃ×e missed the unshakable belief that helped us come back in Headingley, 2002 and Durban, 2010. IÃ×e missed the spirit that won us the Mohali Test in 2010. IÃ×e missed LaxmanÃÔ steely side. IÃ×e missed Tendulkar avatar that shelves shots. IÃ×e missed DravidÃÔ over-my-dead-body efforts on a spiked pitch. I have missed the teamÃÔ ability to counterpunch. I have missed Sehwag.?Which senior player is going to reassure Umesh Yadav with øeÃÃl win in Adelaide? Does anyone in this team even believe we have a chance? And herein lies my anguish. This team is making me lose hope in turnarounds, theyÃÓe whimpering from one game to another, theyÃÓe acting like hesitant, shy schoolboys and walking into well-laid traps. They are showing no inkling to think out of the box. And they are bizarrely surrendering meekly rather than going down swinging. ItÃÔ a team IÃÎ not used to. ItÃÔ a team that has forgotten how to respond. ItÃÔ a team thatÃÔ lost its bearings. I donÃÕ care which eleven Indian players walk out at Adelaide. I donÃÕ even want to suggest who to drop and who to retain. Losing 4-0 isnÃÕ the end of the world (after all, weÃ×e been there a few months ago). I am not paying any attention to all the speculation about impending retirements. All I ask for is a sign. All I ask for is more of what Umesh did on the second day at Perth, more of what Kohli did on the third. All I ask for is any sign that tells me that this team is willing to reverse the tide, a sign that shows me that that these players havenÃÕ forgotten the art of fighting the odds, a sign that reassures me that the wheels havenÃÕ completely come off at the end of an ardous journey that began thanks to many of the same players a little over a decade ago.

[saneindian]

The major difference between 2008 and 2012 is the WC win. That has made the skipper and the players far more relaxed as if they have achieved everything. The BCCI did not have its priorities in the wrong place either.

[Cricket Tragic]

First decent article that SidPee has come up with.

[rkt.india]

Prayer for a strong India http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/550030.html "Kerry was in love with them," the old Australian Cricket Board chief Bob Merriman once said. By Kerry he meant Packer. "Them" were West Indies. The love was real love, not an "I love ice-cream" sort of love. This love was widely shared, across a nation. Boys batted with Viv-approved SS Jumbos and dog-owners named their dogs Eldine and men dug the swagger of these cricketers and an abnormal number of normally non-cricket-mad women dug that too. "Just the attractiveness of them," said Merriman. "I think Kerry himself loved watching them." So six summers out of eight, from 1977-78 onwards, Clive Lloyd-led West Indian teams came to perform their lethal magic in Australia and, more particularly, for Packer and his Channel 9. Other than on Sesame Street they were just about the only black faces seen on Australian daytime TV. Six summers out of eight felt like a lot. Throw in Australia's two Caribbean trips and that made it eight encounters in eight seasons. Australia is locked now in another gut-on-gut embrace with a country two oceans east of the Caribbean islands, population 1.2 billion, estimated TV sets 112 million. "India's major partner" is how senior Cricket Australia men describe the organisation they work for. They say it a bit proudly. What it means is this: 11 times in nine summers, India have toured Australia or the Australian team has gone there. There live Indian boys of 12 and 13 with no memory of an Australia-less cricket summer at home. The last one was 2005-06. Lloyd's West Indians kept coming because they played thrilling, menacing cricket and because everybody made money out of it. Australia and India keep playing each other because everybody makes money out of it. If one of the two ingredients - good cricket - is missing, does that wreck the cake? The men who sit on the board of "India's major partner" might say: "To a point." Or: "Pig's ****." If India win or India lose, Indians will keep watching cricket and Indian TV stations will keep buying cricket. That's the presumption. The market decides. An ailing, rebuilding Indian team might make for years of fascinating TV-watching in India. It could, true, get teeth-itching for Australians. With one Test left this summer people have already mentally flicked over to the tennis. Also, there is right now in Australia a palpable shortage of dog-owners naming their dogs Gautam. But even if Australians do stop watching, stop going, stop caring, Australia still gets the Indian TV money. That's a payday five to six times bigger than when England tour and it's incalculable trough-fulls more than they get from hosting any other country. The Windies' pomp happened in pre-TV bonanza time. But their players were well paid for coming. For Australia, the hype was huge and the crowds were solid or better and advertisers queued up with glee. One constant guaranteed it: the cricket was good. It can take years to retrospectively read a series of four or more Tests in clear morning light. No one knows yet if this summer's meting out of awesome thrashings is down to Australian awesomeness or India's decline or both. If you bend your mind to the issue, though, most of India's troubles seem traceable to people's preoccupation with slashed-down Twenty20. Their batsmen run between wickets with the stepping-on-syringes gait of men used to dealing only in boundaries - men for whom "runs" might more accurately be rechristened "points". No stonewaller exists to balance Sehwag at the top. No technician of Dravidian pristineness can be found to bat at three, so poor Rahul Dravid is still there, even though he's 39. VVS Laxman looks Twenty20-fit, not cricket-fit, with 20 overs his batting ceiling and that's only on rare days of very vast stamina. To point out that the tailenders hit exclusively to cow corner and that cow, intellectually speaking, is in this instance a particularly apt animal metaphor is to underestimate the craftiness of cows. Despite this, no one protects the tail or tries farming the strike. The one who could, Dhoni, bats in bursts. As a wicketkeeper Dhoni exudes a kind of disengaged competence: this from the country that gave cricket Tamhane, Engineer, Kirmani. Which is to say that regular Twenty20 meetings between the two nations might be no bad thing. But 13 months from now they'll be playing four more Tests in India, then another four Tests two summers later in Australia, with seven one-dayers and a T20 the season before that, and an additional seven one-dayers and two T20s the season after, and that's not counting one-off clashes in World Cups, Champions Trophies, World Twenty20 carnivals, yet-to-be-named insurance company cups and anything else India's major partner or even India itself plans to sneak into the schedule and hasn't forewarned us about. Meanwhile, Australia is likely to get better on the field while India struggles and spurts along. To keep Australians interested, somehow India must replace Laxman, Dravid and Tendulkar - and replace them not just as cricketers. Those three men are deeply liked. Cricket needs a strong India, it's said. Cricket Australia is begging for one. There's a cycle that works. It's called the Ashes. Thirty months after England tour Australia, Australia go there, and 18 months later England come back again. Occasionally they have increased the frequency. That hasn't worked since the 19th century. Most love fizzles, fades, sometimes never to be rekindled. In the last of those six West Indian summers, 1984-85, Andrew Hilditch blocked Australia to a heroic draw at the MCG and only 11,325 spectators paid money to see it. West Indies weren't invited back so often after that. Malcolm Speed, Cricket Australia's former chief executive, is an admirer of his successor, James Sutherland, and in his book Sticky Wicket, Speed says: "I think his best work will revolve around Australia's partnership with India." Two cricket teams playing each other ad nauseam is seldom a bright idea and in the last couple of weeks the idea got a whole lot dumber.

[Viki_J]

good article ... something to think about now

[Crookbond]

Sydney to Sydney, Perth to Perth http://sidveeblogs.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/sydney-to-sydney-perth-to-perth/

Outsmarted at Melbourne, outclassed at Sydney and outgunned at Perth. India started this tour with, what many called, their best chance of winning a Test series in Australia. They will end it in shambles. Four years ago a big chunk of this team traveled to Australia. They had been outsmarted in Melbourne. Dravid, asked to open, was struggling to put bat on ball; Laxman was suffocated and Tendulkar dazzled with a first-innings fifty before falling to an expansive stroke. India, bogged down by maidens, struggled to score at much more than two an over in the second innings. Just as in the 2004 series in India, their batsmen were frustrated out. At the end of the match, Kumble spoke of the fine line the team needed to tread: to try and score freely, yet not venture into irresponsible territory. The late Peter Roebuck summed it up when he said: India need to meld beauty with grit. There was a further blow on the eve of the Sydney Test: Zaheer was ruled out, leaving India with a new-ball pair with a combined experience of ten Tests. And to top it off Australia, on the verge of a record-equaling 16th consecutive Test win, won the toss. The odds were stacked as high at the Harbor Bridge. But nobody told RP Singh about this. In only his ninth Test, he made up his mind to lead the attack and turned in two inspired spells. Ishant, in just his third Test, ran in hard and induced an edge off Symonds when he was on 30 (his reaction to being denied the wicket was to try and bowl faster). On a day dotted with horrific umpiring and a belligerent partnership, India kept striving. They were down but those walking in for the second dayÃÔ play knew they were far from being out. Then came the fightback. Laxman brought the beauty, Dravid came with the grit. One scorched crisp cover-drives, the sweet sound of leather on willow prompting gasps across the SCG; another played, missed, edged, blocked, played again and missed again. One flew, the other dodged. Here was beauty, in all its splendor, melding with hard-as-nails grit. The series was alive. None of this would have mattered if not for what followed: Tendulkar arriving with masterful control. This was not a diamond-studded half-century but an immaculately paced hundred. Like a perfectly-oiled machine, the gears neatly enmeshed, he gradually clawed India back. India led by 69 in the first innings. This team was kicking. Three days later, they were flattened. Defeated in the gloaming, done in by shoddy umpiring and insulted by an opposition captain who didnÃÕ see the need to shake hands with his counterpart at the end of the match, India endured what was possibly their most painful Test defeat. One of the younger players in the team, his head bowed, sitting distraught in the dressing-room, felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Kumble. His message was brief: ŸeÃÍl win at Perth. And win they did. Barring perhaps Kolkata in 2001, no Indian Test victory could have been scripted against such odds. Australia hadnÃÕ lost at the WACA since 1997; India had never won there. The pre-match talk was about pace, pace and more pace. Shaun Tait was set to be unleashed as Australia aimed for win No. 17. India won the toss. Conventional wisdom suggested they field. Kumble chose to bat. Dravid, back to No.3, regained his confidence, Tendulkar innovated, those magical wrists guiding short balls over the slip cordon, and Laxman showcased his steely side. RP continued to lead the attack manfully and Irfan Pathan, making a comeback, swung the ball at delightful arcs. Ishant devoured Ponting in that spell and the tail wagged RP adding valuable runs with Laxman as India stretched the lead in the second innings. Adelaide followed. An even contest deservedly ended in a draw. A series that had begun like a nightmare ended with plenty to cheer. Sydney and Perth were inflection points: it was a point from which Australia lost their aura, the team losing its sheen with every series that followed. For India, it was the start of an ascent. They won the one-day tri-series that followed. Many players, including Dhoni, has spoken about the effect that the tour had on the players, the confidence they gained in battling adversity and the satisfaction in clawing back from what was seemingly an abyss. Sydney and Perth in 2008 epitomised the Indian Test side of the last decade. These were teams which rose to the top by finding a way to fight back; by putting behind a demoralising defeat; by disrupting the oppositionÃÔ rhythm when the bowlers were on top (Sehwag at Galle, Laxman at Sydney); by scrapping when the pitch was hard (Dravid in Headingley and in Kingston, Tendulkar in Nottingham, Gambhir in Napier); by seeking battling performances from the tail (Nottingham, Sydney, Adelaide, Kingston); by the dint of rookies exceeding expectations (RP, Ishant, Dinesh Karthik, Sreesanth, Bangar, Irfan); by believing that they will only improve as the series goes along; by understanding that beauty means nothing if not infused with grit. And here we stand in 2012 when an Indian team has competed in Melbourne, shriveled in Sydney and collapsed in Perth. Zaheer and Sehwag have been fit for all Tests and Dravid hasnÃÕ needed to open. Ishant has more than 100 Test wickets now and Dhoni despite the shellacking in England and here remains, statistically, IndiaÃÔ most successful captain. The team had two practice games before the tour and were up against an Australian side in a transition a side that will struggle to match up to the Australian squad from 2008. These results are not purely a matter of ability. Zaheer is a far more capable bowler than RP and Irfan; Gambhir has a far better Test record than Bangar, Karthik and Chopra; the crux of the batting line-up knows what it takes to win Tests in Australia; Dhoni knows what it takes to win cricket matches; and the bulk of the tail Ashwin, Zaheer and Ishant are more than capable of sticking around than many of their recent predecessors. This was supposed to be a team that had a judicious mix of youth and experience a chance for the old guard to say a cheerful goodbye as the young guns took charge. And yet itÃÔ all up in smoke. You can analyse the defeats until the cows come home, you can debate the merits of selection, you can dissect DhoniÃÔ captaincy threadbare, you can grapple over an apparent flaw that has crept into DravidÃÔ technique, you can criticise Kohli for not seizing all his chances, you can curse the hype over TendulkarÃÔ 100th hundred, you can slam the IPL, you can hurl your kitchen sink at the BCCI, you can list umpteen ways in which domestic cricket can be revamped, you can wonder if India is even prepared with a succession plan once the veterans retire and you can question what Duncan Fletcher has brought to this side (if he has brought anything at all). But I am more interested in that one quality thatÃÔ gone missing. Call it belief, call it bounceback-ability, call it an unshakeable resolve, call it a desire to reverse the tide, call it the X-factor, call it anything. I am more interested in when and how this side lost its ability to fight the odds. I am not suggesting the players arenÃÕ trying. That has never crossed my mind. But itÃÔ quite clear that something intangible is missing. Some have called it ÁÉunger? others say itÃÔ called ÁÅesire? I am not going to invent a new term here but, as someone who has watched IndiaÃÔ Test side over two decades, I sense a gaping absence. IÃ×e missed the Ganguly-inspired ballsiness. IÃ×e missed the ÁÇuck you mode that John Wright asked the team to adopt during the 2003 World Cup. IÃ×e missed the unshakable belief that helped us come back in Headingley, 2002 and Durban, 2010. IÃ×e missed the spirit that won us the Mohali Test in 2010. IÃ×e missed LaxmanÃÔ steely side. IÃ×e missed Tendulkar avatar that shelves shots. IÃ×e missed DravidÃÔ over-my-dead-body efforts on a spiked pitch. I have missed the teamÃÔ ability to counterpunch. I have missed Sehwag. Which senior player is going to reassure Umesh Yadav with Á¸eÃÍl win in Adelaide? Does anyone in this team even believe we have a chance? And herein lies my anguish. This team is making me lose hope in turnarounds, theyÃÓe whimpering from one game to another, theyÃÓe acting like hesitant, shy schoolboys and walking into well-laid traps. They are showing no inkling to think out of the box. And they are bizarrely surrendering meekly rather than going down swinging. ItÃÔ a team IÃÎ not used to. ItÃÔ a team that has forgotten how to respond. ItÃÔ a team thatÃÔ lost its bearings. I donÃÕ care which eleven Indian players walk out at Adelaide. I donÃÕ even want to suggest who to drop and who to retain. Losing 4-0 isnÃÕ the end of the world (after all, weÃ×e been there a few months ago). I am not paying any attention to all the speculation about impending retirements. All I ask for is a sign. All I ask for is more of what Umesh did on the second day at Perth, more of what Kohli did on the third. All I ask for is any sign that tells me that this team is willing to reverse the tide, a sign that shows me that that these players havenÃÕ forgotten the art of fighting the odds, a sign that reassures me that the wheels havenÃÕ completely come off at the end of an ardous journey that began thanks to many of the same players a little over a decade ago.

[Sid]

Sorry mcenley as always,this has also been posted earlier :cantstop:

[Sarkar]

Enough of these negative articles