Friday, October 28, 2005

The New Reign

The Dravid Reign is just 2 matches old. And i know its TOO early to say anything, but still i firmly believe that to declare Dravid as captain for 2 whole series in advance is a step in right direction. Atleast the guy will have some confidence, some breathing space so that now he can concentrate on making strategies for the series in hand unless otherwise where Ganguly's return would always have been on his mind ! The team for the rest of the ODIs is yet to be decided and Ganguly's return to the team or rather Ganguly's future completely depends upon today's meeting. Now leaving Ganguly aside for now and talking about the new reign.

In the 2 matches played India has completely outplayed SriLanka, yes people might say that it's there home game and all, but i can't remember when did india dominated SL after Jayasuriya burst onto the scene. Whatever might be the reason in last 2 matches there seems to be a newly found self-belief. Some amazing performances from Sachin, Pathan, Dravid and Harbhajan led india to win in the first match and then again in 2nd match Pathan and Sachin took india to another easy victory.

First biggest plus point i
see in these 2 matches is the new look Sachin, for past few years he has just been ambling along for his runs, with most of his attacking shots being pushed onto the backseat. But in these 2 matches he has danced down the track repeatedly to spinners (including Murali), much to my (and others) delight. Seems like the good ol' Sachin is back amongst us, yes again its too early to draw an conclusion but well the good signs are here for all of us :) He is just back from the surgery and a long lay-off, maybe he would have realised in this break that he doesnt have enough cricket left in him, maybe just 1 or 2 years (with all these injuries just round the corner), so i guess he has realised that he now should play his own natural game and just go out there and ENJOY !! And if he can really go out on the field just to Enjoy, then i am very much sure india are going to see some more of these scintillating innings from the little-master. He has got all the fame/records/ and everything what anyother cricketer can only dream off, so i dont think there's much left for him to achieve (except for a World Cup win maybe), so he can really go out an ENJOY himself. This would not only be beneficial for him but also for the team. Also Indian team now has atleast few people who can play the big anchor role notably Dravid and Kaif.

The other big plus point of these 2 matches has been Irfan Pathan, the way he batted in the first game and then his new ball spell in 2nd match has just turned the game for indian team. I firmly believe Chappell and Dravid together can bring this consistency in him, and he can really be a great asset to the team in the near future, with the World Cup just round the corner.

The other big plus to me has been the bowling of Harbhajan Singh, i dont remember Harbhajan bowling too many crucial spells apart from series against Aus in '01. Few good spells here and there were all he did. But in these 2 matches he has looked pretty good, especially in first match when he picked up wickets when the dangerous Jayasuriya and Sangakkara were going berserk.

Dravid himself led the team from front in the first match..with a breathtaking 85 notout off just 63 balls. And has made some good decisions while fielding (ya ya i know when someone's winning all decisions looks great). But the best thing i liked about Dravid in these matches was his post-match statement - his humbleness. He simply said that its just one match, this was a match where almost everything when perfect and which is rare and we have to concentrate on future matches. And his best reply was when he was asked "If Irfan pathan is next Andrew Flintoff ?", he answered "Well he's just a bowler who can bat a BIT". That's a perfect reply to keep a person down-to-earth, especially with media like ours around who can simply put anyone on cloud 9 after just 1 good performance. Infact Irfan himself has been through this.

Anyway enough for now.

Just as i finish this off i see the news that GANGULY HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN THE TEAM !!

Hurray...for a change THUMBS UP TO INDIAN SELECTORS...

with this positive mood i head to see Catherine..ooops i mean "The Legend of Zorro"

:)

5 comments:

Flying Machine said...

Hey what a good new! Ganguly no more a part of the Indian cricket team. His presence was enough to make everybody around gloomy.

Hail Chappell and Best of Luck to Dravid.

Kon ?? said...

@bhagya
arey yeh kya koi news site hai ki news padh rahi hai !! :)
btw im sure u wud hv just read the BOLD letters ;)

ya best of luck 2 dravid for sure..

n thx 4 commenting :)

Sanjay said...

The only thing is what we say "chadte sooraj ko salaam". I think its not that long time back to forget when we used to hail Ganguly for his great aggresive captainship, considered him a perfect match for aussies way of playing the game the hard way, a saviour, a promotor of upcoming young cricketers (that is further strengthened by the fact that bhajji took his side during this chappel-ganguly drama).
No doubt he is in bad-form but probably he deserves a better treatment.
As far as Tendulkar is considered definitely happy to see him bat this way otherwise i was kind of fed-up listening to his post-match speech "i play for my country and was not even aware that i was close to a century" :-) (and that after visibly spending all his skills to somehow complete the century which occured sometimes at the cost of not scoring fast runs required at crunch times). Hopefully he will not go back to that state again.

Dravid is a gentleman - no doubt. Hopefully his gentleness will not prevent him from taking hard decisions if and when required.

Sanjay said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Kon ?? said...

@sanjay
>chadte sooraj ko salaam
well agreed, that's why i repeatedly wrote its TOO early to say anything...but ATLEAST we are looking to move ahead rather then just hoping that someday our gud ol' war [did i said war ?] horses will come gud..

>better treatment ?
wat exactly u mean by better treatment ? man if u or ganguly want we/team can arrange for a farewell bash for ganguly ! won't that be good enough ??

for more than 2 years he has hardly performed apart frm a few centuries against minnows, infact he averages 17 this year in ODIs. Is 7-8 years of cricket that he has given to us, good enough to forget his under-performance for 2 years especially when the team is losing and he is supposed to lead from the front ? A winning team might just overlook few players underperforming, but a losing team just cant. Infact only coz india was winning earlier his performance was overlooked.

This so-called *BETTER TREATMENT* thing has been killing indian cricket for ages, playing the *STARS* instead of in-form players !! This brings in a sense of complacency in players...ever wondered WHY aussies have been on top of the world for these many years ? they GENERALLY have replaced their stalwarts before they completely fade out...like Steven waugh, mark, bevan et al. Ya some of them have been a tad too early, but this has allowed them to remain on top always. Yes india is no australia...but a lil' bit aussie behaviour would only help in long run.

Lastly we should appreciate one of the very rare BOLD step by our selectors, atleast this will keep all the players on their toes, which will make them perform, unlike the generally complacent attitude of indian cricketers namely Yuvraj, harbhajan....et al...