It was a Test match but we couldn’t even last three days. Team India has lost the Perth Test by an innings and 37 runs and the series 0-3 to Australia. Out of a possible 15 playing days, the hosts need only 10 and half days to vanquish us. Now we have lost seven Tests on the trot abroad. It doesn’t get any worse than this. But wait, there’s one more match to go.
Who’s responsible? The batsmen, the million dollars IPL babies, are the primary culprits. In the previous two matches, they had showed a lack of application. At Perth, they concentrated harder on the job. You cannot accuse Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid or anybody else of throwing their wicket away. But unfortunately, the bowlers were too good for them. That’s sad. Because it means you are just not good enough anymore.
The truth is this: our best batsmen are past their prime. They can still come up with the odd 50 abroad. But they cannot dominate a quality attack anymore as they have done in the past. The England fiasco should have opened our eyes. It didn’t. Now we only have ourselves to blame. Kohli doesn’t have a better technique than Dravid or Tendulkar. But he had something to prove at Perth. His determination made him succeed. Now he will be a much improved player for the rest of his life. Kohli went to Australia as a boy; he will return home as a man. It is a pity that Rohit Sharma didn’t get similar opportunities. The Test series would have been a great learning curve for him too.
But should he be sacked as captain? No. True he has performed below potential but this is a collective failure. When every batsman in the team fails, the captain cannot be the fall guy. And I wonder what coach Duncan Fletcher’s contribution has been all these months.
Obsession with individual milestones in a team game is our national malaise. The primary question on everyone’s lips before the Australian tour wasn’t how well Team India would perform but when Tendulkar would get his 100th international 100.
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