The
fourth one day turned out to be a high scoring match with Australia
posting a huge 348 runs first innings total. India were equally up to
to the task, India scored 277/1 and needed just 72 runs of 75 balls to win the match. But after that, carnage followed. It was one of the
worst batting performances by the middle and lower order Indian
batsmen ever seen.
This
days batting collapses have become a rarity since teams are used to
playing T20s where they end up scoring even 70 of 30 balls to win a
match. However it seems like India's middle order and lower order
were not focused at all in winning the game. In what should have been
a cakewalk, they ended up undoing all the good work done by Rohit Sharma,
Virat Kohli and Shikar Dhawan.
For
the first time in the ongoing series the Australian captain and
bowlers seemed out of ideas when Shikhar and Kohli were batting. The
top three Indian batsmen batted so well that they made Australian
bowling look absolutely ordinary. The bowlers were totally
ineffective. The wicket of Rohit Sharma was taken by Kane Richardson, not because of brilliant bowling, it was a horrible delivery way wide
of the leg stump. Sharma tried to glance it but it took his glove and
Wade took a brilliant catch.
After
that there was a wonderful partnership between Shikhar and Kohli and
in the 37th over India were crusing at 277/1. However after the fall
of Shikhar's wicket a wicket storm followed. Dhoni came down the
track to Hastings in the second ball he faced and ended up giving a
thin edge to the wicket keeper. The middle order and the lower middle
cracked and the entire Indian team was out for 323 runs.
Really
this questions the team selection. Why do we need below average
players like Gurkeerat Singh Mann and Rishi Dhawan when we have way
more talented and experienced players like Gambheer, Yuvraj, Manoj
Tiwari, Murli Vijay etc. Gurkeerat and Rishi neither bowled well,
they leaked a lot of runs and they were not even able to contribute
anything with the bat. A team whose middle and lower middle order
cannot even score 72 of 75 balls on a flat batting track deserves to
lose and that's what happened.
Dhoni
gets away with failures overseas and that is the reason why he has
become complacent. Its about time when the Team India's captaincy is
handed over the Virat Kohli. The truth is had Indian bowling been
better, India could very well have been up 4-0 in this series, rather
than the other way round.
The
real reason behind constant bad performances by Team India when it
travels overseas is that no action is taken against the team or
captain. In India cricket is the only sport that has a mass following.
So even if the team does not do well, the people of the country will
still watch cricket. In Australia where they have more than one
popular sport, if the team starts performing badly then hardly anyone
will come to watch the game. This keeps the players and teams on their toes they have to keep performing well to keep the Australian public interested in the game.
It
has been really disappointing to watch Team India's performance in
Australia. One just hopes that performances improve in the upcoming
T20s and the last one dayer.
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