Team India fails to shine at Lord'sBy : Md Mudassir Alam
SO, THE FIRST cricket test between India and England ended in a draw. As England was one wicket away from victory, Indians were trying to save their pride. Thanks to rain god who came at the right time to save the match for India. Once again the test match has raised a finger on the ability of Indian top players.
With a strong team including four world-class batsmen, Indian team landed on the historic Lord’s cricket ground. But in the very first innings these players disappointed the cricket fans. Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar couldn’t transform his innings into a big one, Rahul Dravid couldn’t become the wall, Sourav Ganguly couldn’t play his off-side stroke and there was nothing special in very very special VVS Laxman. See the runs scored by our top players in both the innings—Sachin Tendulkar (37, 16), Rahul Dravid (2, 9) Sourav Ganguly (34, 40) and Laxman (15, 39). None of these players could score 50 in any innings. In total they scored 192 in both the innings, which was not enough to make India’s dominance in the match or bring the victory for India.
Altogether these four players have played around 400 test matches and have scored more than 80 centuries, but in cricket’s Mecca, Lord’s none of them came up with a big score. Do you expect such type of performances from these players? I say a big NO, we can’t expect or accept such disastrous performances from Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman.
Before the start of Lord’s test India’s captain as well as senior players were making tall claims that they will perform very well there. But only bowlers performed well and bowled out England within 300 runs in both the innings. Amongst the bowlers young R.P. Singh and experienced Zaheer Khan were special.
In Lord’s cricket ground fans were expecting much from Tendulkar. Some were even expecting that the little master will break the jinx here and score his first century here. But he couldn’t create the magic and fell miserably against Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar. On the other hand Dravid, who had earlier played several memorable innings in England, was not himself. Scoring 11 runs in two innings defines it very well that burden of captaincy is affecting his performance. After the match Dravid gave a surprising statement that ‘our bowlers didn’t bowl well.’ Oh! What an irresponsible statement? Everyone knows that bowlers did their job very well, in fact, the batsmen are responsible for such a poor performance.
Cricket is a game of professionals, here one bad shot makes a huge difference and you never get the chance to make up for the mistake. Most of the time we find that Indian players make several mistakes, and don’t perform up to their level, that’s why we lose matches. Indian players should take lessons from the England players Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen. Both of these players took their team to a good total and bowlers did rest of the job very well.
Moreover, it was the first test match for India and weather became a protective shield and saved India from defeat. Now in the rest two test matches Indian players especially the senior players should play their part very well to bring triumph to India.
With a strong team including four world-class batsmen, Indian team landed on the historic Lord’s cricket ground. But in the very first innings these players disappointed the cricket fans. Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar couldn’t transform his innings into a big one, Rahul Dravid couldn’t become the wall, Sourav Ganguly couldn’t play his off-side stroke and there was nothing special in very very special VVS Laxman. See the runs scored by our top players in both the innings—Sachin Tendulkar (37, 16), Rahul Dravid (2, 9) Sourav Ganguly (34, 40) and Laxman (15, 39). None of these players could score 50 in any innings. In total they scored 192 in both the innings, which was not enough to make India’s dominance in the match or bring the victory for India.
Altogether these four players have played around 400 test matches and have scored more than 80 centuries, but in cricket’s Mecca, Lord’s none of them came up with a big score. Do you expect such type of performances from these players? I say a big NO, we can’t expect or accept such disastrous performances from Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman.
Before the start of Lord’s test India’s captain as well as senior players were making tall claims that they will perform very well there. But only bowlers performed well and bowled out England within 300 runs in both the innings. Amongst the bowlers young R.P. Singh and experienced Zaheer Khan were special.
In Lord’s cricket ground fans were expecting much from Tendulkar. Some were even expecting that the little master will break the jinx here and score his first century here. But he couldn’t create the magic and fell miserably against Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar. On the other hand Dravid, who had earlier played several memorable innings in England, was not himself. Scoring 11 runs in two innings defines it very well that burden of captaincy is affecting his performance. After the match Dravid gave a surprising statement that ‘our bowlers didn’t bowl well.’ Oh! What an irresponsible statement? Everyone knows that bowlers did their job very well, in fact, the batsmen are responsible for such a poor performance.
Cricket is a game of professionals, here one bad shot makes a huge difference and you never get the chance to make up for the mistake. Most of the time we find that Indian players make several mistakes, and don’t perform up to their level, that’s why we lose matches. Indian players should take lessons from the England players Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen. Both of these players took their team to a good total and bowlers did rest of the job very well.
Moreover, it was the first test match for India and weather became a protective shield and saved India from defeat. Now in the rest two test matches Indian players especially the senior players should play their part very well to bring triumph to India.
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