Australia on decline ?

India crushed Australia by 320 runs in Mohali to win the second test and take a 1-0 lead in the series. India is the only team to have consistently competed with Australia in last 10 years. Be it Kolkata 2001, Adelaide 2004 or Perth 2008, India did have the measure of Australia in some important games. Still this victory in Mohali is unprecedented in many ways and may be a reflection of what we see in future. The era of Australian dominance over the world, may finally be coming to an end.

A surprising thing in the defeat was the way Australia played. Winning and losing are part of the game and even the best of sides can have an off day, but the way you play determines what percentage of matches you win. I remember the second test at Edgbaston in 2005 Ashes series, where Australia was set a target of 293. They resumed the final day, with an almost hopeless situation at 175-8, but played aggressively, fought till the end and eventually lost only by 2 runs. Though Australia lost the test and series, they played like a champion team and lost like one (and mauled England 5-0 in the next Ashes series).
But in the Mohali test, Australia was defensive from the outset and lacked the aggression and fighting spirit that made them the no. 1 team in the world. After India piled up 469 runs in the first innings, the Australian team of yesteryears would have counter attacked and taken on the Indian bowling, instead this Australian team crawled to 269 from 101.4 overs at a run rate of 2.6! Also while chasing 515 runs in the fourth innings they over-attacked and were reduced to 58-5. Though this may seem to be aggressive cricket, in reality it was a desperate move by a team lacking in confidence. It was as if they accepted the defeat even before the innings started. Successful Australian teams in past scored over 4 runs an over by just playing their natural game, not by trying to hit every ball out of the ground.

India scored 314 runs in their second innings at a run rate of almost 5 runs per over losing only 3 wickets. I can hardly remember any other innings where Australian bowlers were treated with such disrespect. None of the three fast bowlers or the spinners looked like taking a wicket. The most striking thing was the inability of the fast bowlers to reverse swing the ball, whereas the Indians did it at will. It was hard to believe that it was the same pitch where Australia was bundled out for 269. In past Australian bowlers did have days when batsmen had the better of exchanges, none less than the famous Kolkata test in 2001, where VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid denied them a wicket for the whole day. But usually this was because of some exemplary cricket by the batting team. In Mohali, Indian batsmen played good cricket, but not good enough to justify Australia leaking 314 runs at a rate of 5 runs an over. The decline in their bowling prowess just shows how important Glen McGrath and Shane Warne were to Australia.

The Mohali test may just not be a defeat for Australia, but a beginning to the end of their dominance of world cricket. Cricket, like any other sport, is played as much in the mind as in the field. You can bounce back after a defeat in the field, but if you lose mentally it requires a big effort to come back. Unfortunately, Australia seems to be losing the mental game. One of the great sights in test cricket was aggressive Australian batsmen scoring fast runs and making a mockery of world class bowlers; which may not happen anymore now. On the other hand, the rest of the teams will no longer fear Australia as they used to. The good part is that games will be more competitive and we will no longer see any 16 match winning streaks, but the sad part is this happened due to lowering of the bar by Australia rather than others raising it.

Roger Federer and the Australian Cricket Team

Roger Federer and the Australian Cricket team(ACT) make an interesting comparison. There are a lot of similarities between them and yet there are some startling differences; differences which separate legends from champions.

Both Roger Federer and ACT have dominated their respective sport in the last few years. Roger Federer has won 13 and reached 17 finals of the last 22 grand slams. The consistency with which Federer played, especially in the grand slams, made him such a force that most of the players lost even before stepping on to the court. Similarly, Australia has dominated test and one day cricket over the last decade. They have won, an incredible three consecutive world cups and have won test series all over the world, including India which Steve Waugh, the former Australian captain called the final frontier. Like Roger Federer, Australia won half the battle even before taking the field.

Surprisingly, the decline of Roger Federer and ACT has also coincided. 2008 is the year where Roger Federer lost Wimbledon, a grand slam which he had won for the last five years. He lost the No.1 ranking which he held for a record 237 weeks. Though, he won the US open, he lost the aura of invincibility which surrounded him. 2008 is also the year in which Australia lost to India 2-0 in the test series, first time in almost 10 years where they failed to win a test in a series. Also, the manner in which they lost has made other teams believe they can also win against Australia. As with Federer, though Australia is still better than most teams, they are no longer invincible.

But there are some big differences between them as well. Australia come across as a group of overconfident and arrogant cricketers, with no respect for the opposition and who would go to any extent to win a match; remember Sydney test? Under the garb of mental disintegration, they were the ones who introduced sledging into the gentleman's game. On the other hand, being humble in victory is one of Federer's traits. He always respects his opponents irrespective of their rankings, although this should not be misunderstood as lack of confidence.

Now that both Federer and ACT are on decline, the differences are even more clear. When Federer lost the epic Wimbledon final, he had nothing but praise for Nadal. In fact, after every loss (and he has lost quite a few this year), he always gives credit to the opponent. He is a perfect example of someone who is gracious in defeat. ACT, on the other hand are sore loser. Mathew Hayden blamed the incidents in the "Third World" for the series defeat against India, as if India were playing in some other world. Instead of accepting that they were beaten by a better team, Australia is trying to find excuses for the defeat.

Federer is humble in victory and gracious in defeat, whereas ACT is the exact opposite. Hope Australia learns a few lessons from Roger Federer and maintain the dignity of gentleman's game. Though I am an optimist, I somehow feel I am hoping against hope !

8 - 1 field, "negative" tactics ?

At the end India comprehensively beat Australia in Nagpur test and won the series 2-0. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has come in for a lot of flak for his "negative" strategy in third day's first session, where he employed a 8-1 field and asked the bowlers to bowl wide of off stump. Former Australian player Ian Chappel has gone so far as to say that rules should be changed so that not more than two-third of the players can be on one side ! What next? Should it be made mandatory to have three slips and a gully to make cricket more interesting ?

The strategy was defensive, but not negative, and definitely not easy!!! The way many people, especially Australians, reacted to it suggests that anybody can bowl to a 8-1 field and restrict the opposition. But it requires great amount of skill and accuracy to bowl to such a field, for any ball even on the middle stump will fetch a boundary. Even Australians tried bowling to such a field in India's second innings, but could not implement it successfully and India still scored at a runrate of around four. Also, if a bowler is bowling defensively the batsman can do something innovative to break the bowler's rhythm and force a field change. The Australian batsmen did nothing of that sort and allowed the Indian s dominate them.

The surprising thing is that the criticism comes from the Australians, who themselves have this attitude of win-at-all-costs. At least, India did not claim bump catches to win the match. I remember the league game between Australia and West Indies in 1999 world cup. Australia needed to win the match against West Indies to progress to Super league stage. But they wanted West Indies to come through as well, for that meant they could carry points into the super league. Chasing 111 for a victory, Australia slowed down considerably after reaching around 90 runs and took another 15 overs to score the remaining runs. All this just to increase West Indies' net runrate and enable them to reach super league. Isn't this negative tactics ?

Sometime back I read in cricinfo about the bowler who introduced googly into the game ( though, I dont remember his name or the year ). Surprisingly, people's initial reaction was that it was against the spirit of the game. A leg spinner should bowl only leg spin and should not "fool" the batsman by bowling offspin in leg spin action. Slowly people realised how difficult it was to disguise googly and it indeed required a lot of skill. The 8-1 field was not only a good strategy, but Indians implemented it in very well. Australians have once again proved that they are hyprocrites and sore losers !!!

Sachin the great ?

"Cricket is our religion,Sachin is our GOD", a message which we have seen many times during the cricket matches.Sachin Tendulkar has acquired the status of a demi god in this cricket crazy country. But is Sachin really the genius we are making him ?

Sachin Tendulkar has always preferred to open the batting in ODI's, a position where batting is probably the most easiest ( except on some rare ocassion where the pitch favors the fast bowlers). All, but two fielders are inside the circle and there is no pressure to start with. The most difficult position in the ODI's is the number 5 or 6 position, where you are always under some kind of pressure. If the team gets off to a good start and you come to bat in the 40-45th over, there is no time to get settled down and you have to score quickly rightaway. If the team loses some early wickets and you are in by 15-20th over, you have to consolidate the score and should not throw away the wicket. Considering the fact that India always had a phlethora of good opening batsmen like Saurav Ganguly, Virendra Sehwag and now even Robin Uthappa, Sachin should have batted down the order for the best results. Infact his record at No.4 in the few matches he has played at the position is also very good.But again, is it possible to score 41 ODI centuries batting at No.4 ?

In the last decade and a half, India are struggling to find a good opening batsman for the Test matches. Infact after Sunil Gavaskar, India hasn't found any good opening batsman, though Virendra Sehwag is great when in full flow. But whenever India has had a good start, their chances of a win has increased considerably. In the 2003 tour of Australia, India had a good opening combination in Sehwag and Akash Chopra, whereas in the last tour to Australia, India did well in the third and the fourth test, when Sehwag was playing well. Still Sachin Tendulkar has preferred to bat at number 4. When he can open in the ODI's, why can't he open in Test matches ? At least like Dravid, he should give it a try. Sachin cannot say that he prefers batting at No. 4 and be indifferent to team's failure, especially when many experts say he is the best contemporary batsman in the world. What worth is your talent and ability, when it does not help the team win matches regularly ? If he is the best batsman in the world, he sure can open the innings.

Sachin, no doubt is the best batsman of his generation and probably the second best ever. But I think most of the time, he has played in a selfish manner and put his own interest ahead of the team. Surely, an unprecedented talent like Sachin deserve to win more matches for India.

The Future of Cricket ( You know what I'm referring to )

“I think they need to accelerate now. The current run rate is only 7.14”, says the commentator, in a match from the twenty20 world cup. Run rate of 7.14 and still need to score fast??? Just shows how the pace of the game has changed in the past 20 years and more so in the past couple of years since the inception of 20-20 cricket. If a cricket fan who went into coma in the 70’s, wakes up now and hears this, will well… go back to coma again. But yes the fact is that cricket has certainly changed beyond recognition. Gone are the days when scoring run a ball was considered good. In ODI, teams are no longer intimidated by scores in excess of 300. And now with the arrival of 20-20, the definition of scoring fast has completely changed.

There has been much opposition to this new format of the game, saying it has too little time to test the skills of the players. It is only a “bang-bang-boom” kind of cricket, where every batsman just tries to whack the ball out of the ground. I would like to disagree here. Skill will continue to remain the most important element in the game.Examples from the current twenty20 world cup illustrate it perfectly. Mohammed Asif rattled the Indian top order with some very fine swing bowling, and almost won the match for Pakistan. Such was his impact that the Indian batsmen were happy to “see him off”.

Another opinion of the skeptics was that spinners will have no role to play in this format. Batsmen will simply muscle them out of the game. Daniel Vettori showed the other day against India, if a spinner backs himself and bowls intelligently, how effective he can be. He took 4-20 from 4 overs, outstanding figures for a 20-20 match, against India, which plays spin better than any other country in the world, on an excellent batting pitch, where South Africa chased down a record 434. You still say it is not a spinner’s game?

The 20-20 has a lot to offer to the game of Cricket, which is slowly losing its popularity across the world.
Bring the crowds back: The biggest accomplishment of 20-20 has been the fact that it has brought the crowds back to the ground. In recent years all over the world, matches have been played in front of largely empty stands. The ODI World cup in West Indies was a big disappointment. Even in India, crowds throng to the stadium only to see an international match and there are empty stands even for a match as important as Ranji Trophy final.
But this has definitely changed with the arrival of 20-20. In England and West Indies, even the domestic 20-20 tournaments have seen full attendance on the grounds. I am sure we will see a similar result in case of ICL (or IPL).
More closer matches and more upsets: In the 2007 ODI world cup, how many matches actually went down to wire and ended in nail-biting finishes? Hardly 2-3 in a total of 51 matches played, less than 5%. Whereas, in the current 20-20 world cup, we have already seen around 5-6 closely fought matches, in a total of 18-19 matches played so far, an impressive 30-35%. Also, there will be far more upsets in this form of the game than any other, as the shorter version of the game suits the minnows. This will make the matches more enjoyable to watch and add an element of unpredictability to the game, which is now plagued by the monotonous nature of one day cricket.
A step towards making Cricket a global sport: 20-20 is a step in right direction in making Cricket a global sport. 20-20 has the best chance amongst all the forms of the Cricket to spread across the world. The Chinese, Japanese and the Americans will find it easier to accept 20-20 which gets over in just over 3 hrs, than the ODI which drags on for one whole day ( most of the times on predictable lines), and the Test cricket which spreads over 5 days but still could end up without a result !!!.

Test cricket will still be the real test of the abilities. But even in 20-20, you need skill and talent to be successful. However, the gap between the best and the rest is narrowed considerably, ironically which is a plus point for the game.