It is deja vu time as the Indian team drag their wearied feet towards the abyss of humiliation, waiting for lady luck to shine down on them. Trailing by 1-3 in the 7 match series, there is little hope for the men in blue as they need to win the remaining 3 matches to beat a young, relatively inexperienced England squad. If they manage to pull it off, they will rewrite history books and if they falter, history would repeat itself to raise the question that has been plaguing the Indian team for a long while – Is the Indian team over-hyped? From what we have seen so far, it certainly seems so. With a team that boasts of stalwarts like Sachin, Dravid and Saurav, who have scored 35,000+ runs between them, it would appear befitting if the team excels in every situation. Alas! It has never been so… The ghosts of the past have revisited the team as the bouncy English pitches have taken their toll for the umpteenth time.
Old blighty has just one player who has an average of 40+ and yet, they manage to pull of the unthinkable time and again. A lesser-known batsman in Ravi Bopara and a 4-match old Stuart Broad, who just knows how to hold the bat straight, have showed the ‘mighty’ tigers what ‘playing under pressure’ is all about. Not wilting and never pessimistic, the English team had almost won the second match as well, courtesy Broad and another fearless all-rounder – Mascarenhas. On the other hand, one must learn from the Indians how to play into a shell and then choke to defeat. Two of the most aggressive players in cricketing history, Sachin and Yuvraj showed us glimpses of Sunny Gavaskar’s 34 odd in 60 overs. Dravid’s captaincy has come under the scanner again with his decision to back Dinesh Karthick’s promotion to No.3, a position only the captain himself can do justice to. This promising newcomer is on the verge of crumbling under the burden of playing an anchor’s role, a stark contrast to his free-flowing style. At the same time, the chink in the armour of another promising player lays exposed as Dhoni battles his own problems on foreign soil. This is not the first time that questions have been raised about his ability to perform outside the sub-continent. The old warhorse Ganguly hasn’t been spared either, with his slow running between the wickets and failure to back-up proving to be a serious glitch. Two totals of 281+ to chase and Ganguly scores a slow 72 in one and a forgettable score in another. As the team heads to the next venue for the 5th and perhaps the most important game in the series, we just hope that the ‘tigers transformed into cats’ purr again.
