Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Indian tour of the West Indies

The Indian cricket team has arrived in the West Indies hoping for a repeat performance of the 1971 series led by Rahul Dravid. India has toured the Caribbean several times but this visit is a different one. It is different because they have come here as clear favorites to win the Tests as well as the one dayers. I say this with certitude even though India’s test record has been abysmal to say the least. I consider the West Indies team a hopeless case and if India has to lose this series then they have work twice as hard as they would have if they were to win. Surprisingly the reason for India’s pathetic record off late is their much hyped batting line up comprising of sehwag,dravid, “the great” sachin, yuvraj and dhoni. These celebrated players have failed time and again when their country needed them the most. Remember the last test in Pakistan {modern legends dravid and tendulkar were bowled by a rookie to innocuous deliveries} and in the recent past the home series against England where we lost against an English school team at home. Our great batsman could not play Monty panesar!!!!!!!! Geoffrey boycott, on seeing Monty bowl, would have said “my mum would have played him with a walking stick with her apron on and that too blindfolded”. Anyways seems like I’ve deviated from the topic. Somehow I love having a go at these Indian batsmen.
Coming back to the topic I think the selectors have goofed up again {I think it is goof up no.12846387 in the past one year}. They should have picked Saurav Ganguly because of a few reasons-
Ø There are lots of youngsters in the team who have not played in the West Indies. So experience counts here.
Ø Indian team has a tradition of failing when it matters the most. Saurav was the only one who showed character under pressure in Pakistan.
But hey this is Indian cricket. This is where people who rule BCCI order selectors to choose players according to their whims and fancies. These jokers {euphemism used here} have picked sachin who is not even fit and to sachin’s credit he is trying his best to be on prime time TV channels to show that his shoulder is healing. Unfortunately we were deprived of Sachin’s interviews when he was scoring his countless ducks.

India will romp home in the one-day series primarily due to 3 reasons namely dhoni, irfan and yuvraj. Chappel and dravid role in recent victories is as big as Manmohan Singh’s role as a prime minister.
I predict a 4-1 result in favor of India.{ come on guys lets give these windies 1 win. This win will come when dhoni,irfan and yuvraj fail and sehwag will perform. By perform I mean he scores around 6-8 runs.}
India will win the tests because we have a good crop of fast bowlers.{finally} and bowlers win test matches. The West Indies batting line up is as good as Bangladesh. That’s right, Bangladesh. Lara is in the sachin mould. Both are spent power. Chanderpaul should be happy if he can stand straight in front of the Indian bowling. Sarwan’s good but has always failed to deceive. Gayle is like Sehwag, actually better than sehwag at the moment. I am hoping when sehwag has some kind of interaction with Gayle, Sehwag will teach him the art of scoring countless ducks,behaving as if he is as good as bradman and then have the audacity to comment on legends like saurav who has scored more runs than half the Indian team. So there you are. The West Indies line up is as good or as bad as Bangladesh.
Recently I was watching an interview of dravid to some news channel. God..... he bored me to death. He calls the WI batting line up a formidable one. Either that guy does not know what formidable means or he was talking about Australia. Or another reason is that he does not have faith in his young fast bowlers. He is seeing a threat where there is none.
And talking about rahul’s interviews they are as boring as the saas bahu soaps on TV. It is repetitive and boring. He does not have the guts to take a stand. Question him on any controversial issue like player burn out or increased use of technology he shies away from it probably afraid of his bosses. He looks meek and does not have the stomach for a good fight. This is where saurav is way ahead of him. Saurav instilled a sense of pride among us. He was the only one who stood up against the might of the aussies. He taught the master of sledging a thing or two about sledging. Rahul comes a cropper in this regard.

All that India has to do to win this series is just turn up in the ground and play even to half its potential. Fortunately the one-day series is first. This means that if India happens to lose the test series it will hurt them. When they come back to India in the back of a defeat the public will not let them forget it. I sincerely hope that India wins the ODI’s and lose miserably in the tests. This will bring them down to earth and show them where they really stand.