The inability to win elusive Test Series in Australia will now become a blot of shame on the otherwise glorious career of the Golden generation of Indian batsmen. The loss at MCG on 29th Dec came as a shock not because of its individuality but because this is straight 5th overseas defeat of India. No one can forget the 0-4 drubbing received by India at the hands of English Team. This is only the second time in my life where i have seen such a grand whitewash, the first being 3-0 loss in 1999-2000 series in Australia. The Indian batsmen were new and inexperienced in that series but the team that played in England in 2011 was one of the finest produced by India. So it becomes very complex to examine the reasons behind the defeat. Indian batsmen ( except Dravid and occasionally Sachin) were completely overwhelmed by the English bowlers. All these golden boys of Indian cricker will retire in a year or so and their absence will create a big black hole in Indian cricket and our Test prospects will go for a toss.
We are not able to find a suitable replacement of Sourav Ganguly (Sourav retired in Nov 2008) and we have given chances to Pujara, Yuvraj, Raina, Kohli but no one has been able to cement his place. There are big question marks on the techniques of Dhoni and Gambhir on bouncy wickets and Laxman has never been consistent in his career, despite of scoring many big glorious centuries. So it creates a huge pressure on Dravid and Sachin and whenever one of them fails, India fails. The same has happened in England,
Dravid played brilliantly but Sachin's performance was not upto the mark and same is destined to happen in Australia. Actually it has just happened in Melbourne, in the Boxing Day Test. Both these batsmen failed in 2nd Inning and India lost the match miserably. So for the betterment of Indian cricket we should not press for the retirement of these great batsmen rather we should first find no. 6th batsman. No need to go to T-20 to find one, get it from Ranji.
Indian bowling looked pretty decent and Umesh Yadav's performance was very very good. Its a very good sign for India cricket but Ashwin needs to improve his bowling.
Performance Rating of Boxing Day Test
Umesh Yadav 8/10
Zaheer Khan 7/10
Ishant Sharma 7/10
Sachin Tendulkar 6/10
Ravichandran Ashwin 6/10
Rahul Dravid 5/10
Virendra Sehwag 5/10
Mahendra Singh Dhoni 1/10
Gautam Gambhir 0/10
Virat Kohli 0/10
V V S Laxman 0/10
We are not able to find a suitable replacement of Sourav Ganguly (Sourav retired in Nov 2008) and we have given chances to Pujara, Yuvraj, Raina, Kohli but no one has been able to cement his place. There are big question marks on the techniques of Dhoni and Gambhir on bouncy wickets and Laxman has never been consistent in his career, despite of scoring many big glorious centuries. So it creates a huge pressure on Dravid and Sachin and whenever one of them fails, India fails. The same has happened in England,
Dravid played brilliantly but Sachin's performance was not upto the mark and same is destined to happen in Australia. Actually it has just happened in Melbourne, in the Boxing Day Test. Both these batsmen failed in 2nd Inning and India lost the match miserably. So for the betterment of Indian cricket we should not press for the retirement of these great batsmen rather we should first find no. 6th batsman. No need to go to T-20 to find one, get it from Ranji.
Indian bowling looked pretty decent and Umesh Yadav's performance was very very good. Its a very good sign for India cricket but Ashwin needs to improve his bowling.
Performance Rating of Boxing Day Test
Umesh Yadav 8/10
Zaheer Khan 7/10
Ishant Sharma 7/10
Sachin Tendulkar 6/10
Ravichandran Ashwin 6/10
Rahul Dravid 5/10
Virendra Sehwag 5/10
Mahendra Singh Dhoni 1/10
Gautam Gambhir 0/10
Virat Kohli 0/10
V V S Laxman 0/10
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