And the story goes on! Same team with same result. India down to 0-2 in 5 test match series against England. England won 2nd test by an innings and 159 runs. Batting debacle continues as like before. History was repeating again and Indian cricket team was in no mood to show any fighting spirit. Single warrior Virat Kohli can’t win the whole war and the icing on the cake was his fitness. Though, nobody knows the future and it is possible that India fights back as series is still on! I am wondering, why the story remains same and the team keeps on changing? Only one man that is Virat Kohli has showed some resistance in the series but rest of the team is looking in a hurry to come back to the pavilion. It look like a race that who's goanna come back early in the pavilion to enjoy some delicious English snacks!
All the batsman are running after the off stump ball. Although I am not as experience as you all are but I have played cricket too. Its my suggestion that please left the bowl and start a healthy competition of who can left more balls and let the bowlers tired. We are asking for T20 show. Any which ways we are wasting 1 or 2 days of the test match just because of our batsman “running after the bowl habit”. Some batsman chasing the ball out of off stump and some are unable to fill the gap between bat and pad. For god sake please somebody call the coach!
There are lots of expectations from the opening players to provide a stable start which lays the foundation of a good score to defend on. But it looks like Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan could not even sniff the ball. Ajinkya Rahane batting looks same as he was in the last tour, no experience or learning added. Cheteshwar Pujara is known for his batting techniques but he keeps getting out and more of the times getting bowled. One can have an idea of a loop hole in Cheteshwar pujara's technique. Hardik Pandya is a fragrance who is losing his aroma day by day after failed performance. For Dinesh Karthik, I can say this is a plateau of his learning, if he can't learn by this time after having so much of experience, I don't think he would ever be able to learn.
Now the solution? What should be the solution to solve India's problem in dealing with pace and swing. Providing the same England like conditions in India for practice is not possible as they have different environment than India. Some of the stadiums in India having similar England like conditions like Dharamshala stadium in Himachal Pradesh due to its cold weather, but it is not possible to go every time to Dharamshala for practice as most of the pitch behavior is decided by the environment. So what’s next?
From my point of view pitches in India should be standardized and only grass filled green top surfaces should be given from the club level matches. Set the pitch standards all over the country. Definitely it will adversely affect India's main strength of spin bowling and young upcoming cricketers will not choose spin bowling as there career but it will help in producing some serious fast bowlers. If pitches are there to support the fast bowler then we will get the genuine fast bowlers as nowadays we have one of the best world class spinners because we have spinner friendly tracks all over. Producing genuine fast bowlers will increase the competition level and batsman at starting level only will start learning to deal with quickies! Our upcoming crop of cricketers will better be able to deal with swing and bounce in foreign conditions. If they can play in those conditions, they can play anywhere in the world.
There is no shortage of talent in India, in fact our current cricket team also having one of the best cricketers in the world, it is just the time that they are not able to deliver. We as an Indian would like to see them performing all over the world, no matter which condition they are playing in, because that team will be the true Champion team! We support our cricket team and this blog is just to let them know what India wants from them.
I would like to know your suggestions on how Indian team can improve its performance on overseas cricket tours.
What measures shall be taken to ensure the making of hardcore cricket warriors for Indian cricket team. Please do share your views!