EVEN when Brett Lee was going great guns in the final of the Champions League at Hyderabad, a cursory glance at the upcoming India-Australia one-day itinerary told you that Lee would struggle to make the starting XI at Vadodara, because the time between the CLT20 final at Hyderabad and the first one-dayer at Vadodara was too short.
Expectedly, Lee got to Vadodara from Hyderabad at 8.30 pm on the eve of the match and the Australian team left the hotel for the ground next morning at seven. Lee, as it transpired, could only bowl six overs in the match and was not fit enough to bowl his yorkers at the death. Perhaps, Ricky Ponting should have rested Lee in the first one-dayer. Then, Lee would have been fit and available for the remainder of the series.
Nathan Hauritz too was in an identical situation as that of Lee, but Hauritz is at least a decade younger than Lee and is a spinner – his craft requiring a run-up of a couple of paces, while that of Lee, demands a considerable involvement of the sinews.
It’s idle and futile for Ponting to slam the timing of the Champions League, because the NSW players are not complaining (every member of this Australian domestic squad pocketed close to ten million rupees). Ponting is now being forced to use his replacements (Ben Hilfenhaus and Doug Bollinger) in the second one-dayer, when he should have used them in the first game at Vadodara and rested Lee. He only has himself to blame.
Anyway that’s Ponting’s problem and his recent outburst should not concern Dhoni at all. What should concern Dhoni is the showing of his own team. A lot of experts are saying that the Indian fielding in the match at Vadodara was way below par. The bowling at the death was ineffective too and this was no time to kick out the bowling and the fielding coach.
I feel this is an entirely wrong line of argument. Harbhajan Singh has made it known – in no uncertain terms – to people close to him that the bowling coach had no inputs for him at all. (Well, that’s showing in Harbhajan’s wayward bowling). When Venky was finding it difficult to solve the problems of the pacers in the first place, it’s quite absurd to expect him to solve the problems of the spinners as well. (And the Sri Lankans do not even want him as their assistant coach and have gone in for Stuart Law instead).
As for India’s poor fielding, I think I have an anecdote to share. I once interviewed Mohd Azharudin, when I was working for a Hindi news channel, at the CCI in Mumbai and during the course of that interview, I asked Azhar what had been the secret of his amazing fielding abilities. “I used to take 250-300 catches everyday as a matter of routine and perhaps do the same number of throw downs as well,” was his succinct reply. So Azhar’s fielding prowess was not a mere coincidence. He used to slog for it. And the team had no special fielding coach during Azhar’s time.
It’s frankly silly to believe that the Indian fielding can improve only if Robin Singh hurls catches at the players. These catches can be hurled by anybody. Even the reserves. The only point of interest is – do the players want to slog to improve their fielding?
Another thing that has become an obsession with the Indian media, is the mindless pursuit of rankings. “India will become number one in ODI rankings if they win the series against Australia”, scream the headlines. I think much more than the players themselves, it’s only the media that keeps following this inane game of rankings.
Do we really need to have the rankings to find out which is the number one ODI team in the world at the moment? Australia has played 34 one day internationals this year (this includes the game at Vadodara). Recently, they beat England 6-1, immediately afterwards they went to South Africa and won the Champions Trophy (for the second successive time). They are the defending World Cup champions in this format. When it comes to world domestic cricket, NSW comes to India, adapts to the low bounce of the pitches here and wins the title. From there to
Vadodara, with only nine fit players from the playing XI (Hopes and Lee couldn’t bowl because of injuries), they beat India on their home turf.
I really don’t think we need the rankings to tell us which is the number one ODI team in the world at the moment.
