It was a tour than began in disaster, and ended it joy. More importantly though it was a journey that gave us an insight into what the future holds for India. And, while it is too early to predict anything, one thing is for sure; the lessons learnt from the defeats will teach the young guns a lot more than what a straightforward win would have done.

When the Indians embarked on this African sojourn, it was seen as a foregone conclusion that they alongwith Sri Lanka would progress to the final, despite arriving here with second-string teams. However, while the Lankans kept the promise and captured the cup, albeit with some hiccups along the way, the Indians fell by the wayside.

A number of factors were responsible for India’s failure. Most importantly, the Indians possessed the weakest bowling line-up of all the three teams. The likes of Ashok Dinda and Umesh Yadav are fit only for the T20 version as of now. This was evident in the disparity of their performances in the two formats.

While they were complete non-performers in the 50-over version, the same duo made life difficult for Zimbabweans in the 20-over format. This clearly signifies that players should not be blooded into one-day cricket on the basis of their IPL performances. No doubt, the duo possesses raw talent, but it needs to be nurtured and, for that, they need to be given time.

The same was the case with Murali Vijay, who was at ease in the ‘IPL’ version, but struggled in the longer format even against average bowling attacks. And hence, the selection of Saurabh Tiwary for Asia Cup sticks out as a sore thumb.

One hopes he proves me wrong, but on recent evidence, it is a clear case of playing with fire. Wouldn’t it have been better to pick a Robin Uthappa, who had a great IPL but, more importantly, has international exposure as well to his advantage?

Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is probably an exception to the rule. He looked at ease in sole ODI he played on the tour, and even in the T20s.

Ashwin’s ability to toss up the ball and fox the batsman has already made him a man to watch out for. And, even in the limited opportunities he got, he proved his worth. Further, his batting effort on one-day debut stands testimony to his ability and character.

This lanky Tamil Nadu player is one who could do India proud in the future. The decision-makers need to utilize his talent to the hilt with Harbhajan Singh now on the wane.

The tour was also a great learning curve for Suresh Raina, who was appointed captain for the series. And while he struggled for most part, it was good to see him sign off on a high. Raina had already improved by leaps and bounds in the few weeks that he led the side.

Whereas, in the beginning he was holding himself back and hoping others hit the spotlight, towards the end he had realized that, whatever the situation, the captain must lead from the front. In this context, his knock in the final T20 at Harare was a landmark. It was a match in which the left-hander went out and expressed himself.

The results were bound to follow. This series should stand Raina in good stead both as a batsman and a leader, if he gets the opportunity to captain India again.

The two major positives for India from the series were the heartening performances of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. While the Mumbai lad silenced a lot of critics with back-to-back hundreds, the ex-India U19 skipper ensured that he cemented his place in the Indian middle-order even further.

Undoubtedly, Sharma and Kohli are the future of India’s batting, and it is essential for them to stay fit and in form with the World Cup coming around, more so since Yuvraj Singh’s temporarily lost his silken touch. Yusuf Pathan also shone towards the end, and hence one can only say that his axing was a decision taken in haste.

The Asia Cup is India’s next target, and while the experienced hands will be back for the four-nation tourney, India would do well to make a note of the lessons from the Zimbabwean safari.

The Sahara group, a conglomerate owned by Subrato Roy, has once again won the rights of sponsoring the Indian men’s cricket team till December 2013. But what is important is the sponsorship deal. There is no doubt why the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) is the richest cricket board in the world. The sponsorship deal only goes to show the influence that the BCCI has on Indian cricket.

It is due to various sponsors such as Sahara and Nike, who pay millions of dollars for years and years, for marketing. Sahara has bid to pay a whopping $719000 for every match in all three formats of the game.This was because the BCCI set a base price of $541000. In the process, Sahara beat its own previous record of paying $300000-450000 depending on the format of the game played by India, in the period of 2005-2009.

The news comes as a shock to many cricket fans as the Sahara Group had won the bid of owning the Pune franchise of the IPL, paying a mind-boggling $370 million. This had happened two months earlier and since Sahara would need cash in order to handle their IPL team from next year onwards, Subrato Roy wasn’t sure in his statements to the press whether Sahara would continue to sponsor the Indian team.

However, the conglomerate has put this sponsorship deal, in similar terms as the Pune ownership, calling it purely ‘emotional’ as the firm loves cricket. Sahara Group has been sponsoring the Indian team since 2001 and has also been sponsoring the Indian hockey team for a long period.

The company’s interest in sports was also evident when they donated additional money to the hockey team, which was in a crisis, last year. In the light of recent events, their so-called ‘emotion’ could be justified, according to statements made by Abhijit Sarkar, the corporate affairs head of Sahara Group.

However, is this what they call ‘emotion’ towards sport? According to many critics of this deal, Sahara has only ashamed themselves by paying $719000 per match to sponsor only the men’s team. They have stopped their sponsorship for the India A, India U-19 and the women’s team respectively.

This is unfair if they love Indian sport and in particular, Indian cricket. This is a clear example of a failed marketing campaign. They have won the bid to sponsor India for three years; however their corporate image could be in tatters soon.

This is purely a business deal as according to market sources, Sahara had earlier paid approximately $88 million for four years. And now, if they only sponsor the men’s team, they would have to pay $106 million on estimation. This will not hurt the group’s cash flow so much.

Cricket in India has become commercialized so much so that the game is totally dependent on money and the IPL’s growing stature is a clear proof of this. It is due to these sponsorship deals that board officials become more corrupt, and hardly spend any of this money for the welfare of young, aspiring cricketers across the country.

So, if Sahara really believes that they are doing this for goodwill, fulfilling their corporate social responsibility (CSR), they need to think again. Instead, they would be doing good perhaps to the entire state of Maharashtra, through the Sahara Pune Warriors team. Young talent will be brought up in the team and Sahara could also create jobs for those young cricketers who are not upto the mark.

Thus, its time that companies like Sahara think about their marketing strategies. They shouldn’t fall prey to the BCCI’s money-making tactics and instead use the sponsorship money to actually improve the Pune team or build new cricketing academies or improve hockey facilities in our country so that Indian sport and in this case, cricket benefits the most.

Sahara is already known by Indian fans as many matches have been played over the last eight years. However, the sponsorship deal makes sense as long as the BCCI uses the money with the right intentions.

If the board can help improve the standard of cricket offered by tournaments such as Ranji Trophy, then I don’t think that Mr. Roy and his company has committed a mistake of sponsoring India as Sahara would actually wish to maintain its pan-India image through the sponsorship, in the eyes of the avid Indian cricket fan.

Can India retain their numero uno status in test cricket? If so, for how long?

India got to number one by beating Sri Lanka. To be at the top of the Test level for long it is vital that all facets of the game are covered be it fielding, bowling or batting. Today, I will be doing a SWOT Analysis of the Indian cricket team which will tell us whether India are a long term number one or whether Australia and South Africa are coming back to take the top post away.

As Ian chapell famously said with India its not India who has taken the top post from Australia. Australia have come down to the level of India after having lost their great players—India haven’t pulled themselves too high.

S-Strengths—
Batting—India’s batting remains a huge plus for them. They seem to un-ending talent when it comes to the batting department. An example to this is how great players like Rahul Dravid and Sourav ganguly have been replaced with such ease at the ODI level. I don’t think any team could have coped with the loss of such great batsmen that easily. After laxman and Tendulkar India seem to have talent in young virat kohli, subramaniam badrinath, rohit Sharma and plenty others.

The batting department seems to be covered. Bowling- India’s only bowling strength seems to be Zaheer khan. He is the only bowler who seems to have done well in the past 18 months. Harbhajan who has been the other permanent feature in the line-up has under-performed which is a major concern for the Indian team.

W-Weaknesses
Bowling-
Harbhajan singh—Bhajji continues to be a worry for India. His performance after anil kumble’s retirement has gone down immensely. He hasn’t assumed the role of the main strike bowler as of yet and is a grave cause of concern for the 6 wise men (Selectors).
India’s lack in bowling depth—VVS Laxman recently mentioned in one of the papers that India doesn’t seem to have that kind of bench strength when it comes to the spin bowling department. Bench strength doesn’t mean the number of players it means the number of quality players. Hence India in spite of having lots of pace bowlers—barely one or two quality ones are to be seen.

Fielding-
India’s fielding is a worry. They have to pounce on to their catches and there is no athletic fielder in the Indian test ranks especially after Yuvraj seems to have given his belly some working. Perhaps that will be sorted once the seniors make way for the youngsters.

O-Opportunities
Bowling-
Since India have one of the longest bowling line up in the world clearly they can convert some of them into good ones. With BCCI (Board of control for cricket in India) being the richest cricket board in the world they can develop a lot of camps not just at state levels but also at the junior level which will help develop bowlers for the future and will stand in good stead for India in the future.

T- Threats
With cash rich leagues like the IPL and champions league coming in young talent could sway towards the money part of the game in order to support their families. Hence, it is vital for the Indian board i.e. the BCCI to take the required actions and prevent this from happening.

Another possible threat could be India could just over rely on their batting strength which would not develop their bowlers. We saw how Irfan Pathan started concentrating on his batting more than his bowling. The same seems to be happening to harbhajan Singh too.

If India indeed want to stay at the top level, especially with Australia slowly but surely coming back to full strength they would have their task cut out. The main challenge for India will come when they will tour South Africa, England and Australia especially without the likes of VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and the master himself Sachin Tendulkar.

Whether or not the young guns would be able to produce the goods under such un-friendly batting conditions is yet to be seen. But, as of now India need to work on their bowling skills. They need Ishant Sharma to get his rhythm back so that he gets his pace back. Once his pace his back to the mid 140’s the nip back in to the batsmen would be more effective. India cannot be too content with Harbhajan Singh. They need to use Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha a lot more in all forms of the game. Only once the pressure is there on harbhajan will he need to perform.

All good teams have wonderful fielding units; although India have a wonderful set of catchers; they need to make sure they need to improve their work in the outfield. However, the most important thing and the fact of the matter still remains that to stay at number one you need to win test matches all around the world and you won’t win test matches without taking 20 wickets too often, in other words you need quality bowlers to win you test matches.

India has had it all when it’s come to the number of pacers in their ranks but, none of them with the exception of Zaheer khan has been able to perform consistently and more importantly economically at the international level. In the last ten years we have seen these cricketers sweat it out without much success:

• Praveen Kumar
• Ishant Sharma
• Munaf Patel
• Ashish Nehra
• S Shreesanth
• Irfan pathan
• L balaji
• Sudeep Tyagi
• Ashoke Dinda
• RP Singh
• Ajit Agarkar
• VRV Singh

All these bowlers be it after injury or after a certain lay off seem to have either lost their pace or swing or their length. Something has definitely gone wrong. India has used all these bowlers in the last 5 years. None of them are a permanent fixture in the Indian team currently. To add to this Abhimanyu Mithun (taking nothing away from the youngster) has been added to the squad for the South African series. Starting right from the beginning

Praveen Kumar: This young man has a good set of skills in his kit bag. However, the only thing missing is the pace. He is still a handful and is perhaps the only bowler out of the above who can swing the new ball both ways. As far he is concerned more consistent performances in the domestic level along with pitching the ball up to the batsman could help him.

Ishant Sharma: This young lanky pacer burst on to the scenes in Australia troubling the likes of Ricky ponting and Matthew Hayden. However, after that golden year of his he seems to have lost out on all the pace he had. The nip back in to the batsman seems to be missing and the rhythm is just gone so much so that he was dropped for most part of the 2009 season in the Indian sub-continent. He needs to get his focus right and that will only happen if the training gets more intense.

Munaf Patel: Perhaps India’s most steady bowler. But, the thing that’s hitting him the most amongst competition is his inability with the willow in hand along with his miserable fielding performances. I still believe that Munaf would have been a regular in the Indian XI had his fielding been of decent standards. Munaf needs to come up with a couple of striking performances so that he is back in the reckoning.

Ashish Nehra: He played his last ODI in about 4 years in September 2005 against arch rivals Pakistan. After that he has suffered several ankle injuries hits and misses. He finally with his good performance with the Delhi daredevils in the IPL West Indies in the absence of Zaheer khan and assumed the role of the strike bowler pretty well. He provided good performances until the back end of the year where his form started to drop and he started to leak runs

S Shreesanth: India’s antic boy—S shreesanth has shown a lot of promise but delivered very little. Barring his performance in South Africa in 2006 shreesanth hasn’t made one series his own. The pacer needs to calm his antics down a little and pay more attention on getting his out swingers going at decent pace.

Irfan Pathan: India’s lost wonder boy. No one knows where he is—after one of the best debuts he could ask for irfan pathan has found himself wanting and is clueless what to do next. After showing himself as India’s next big thing Irfan pathan’s actual performance on the field has left a lot to be desired. The sad thing for irfan is that the selectors have lost hope in him and was seen missing from India’s top 30 squad for the champions trophy. Pathan seriously needs to get his act together and come up with a strong performance in this year’s IPL and show not just the selectors but the entire nation that he is still world class.

L Balaji: Balaji has seen misfortune like no other. After a wonderful start to his career down under that took shape in Pakistan in 2004-2005 balaji looked one for the future. However, after his wonderful tour of Pakistan he was hit by an injury spade which has haunted him ever since then. He did manage to make a comeback which perhaps was his last go and that failure certainly does not hold good for him. His future unfortunately looks a grim one.

RP Singh: RP Singh very similar to Irfan Pathan lost his swing and pace after a decent start to his career. However, the good thing for RP has been his performances in the IPL which has helped him gain a spot not once but twice although he seems to throw it away after that. Another good IPL performance should hold him in good stead and RP must make sure he grabs the next Indian chance he gets which might not be too far considering his colleagues bowling form.

Ajit Agarkar: Once, India’s young and only bowling prospect. Agarkar delivered for a lot of years. He has always been a wicket taker but his backdrop has been his leakage of runs which in this era will not do. Agarkar was a pretty handy bat down the order too with a top score of 95. The selectors seem to have look past Agarkar and its up to Agarkar who has to come up with some strong performances in order to be back in the reckoning.

Sudeep Tyagi, Ashoke Dinda and VRV Singh: the three of them put together have only played a handful of matches. Out of the three Sudeep Tyagi looks the most likely for an Indian future and rightly so. The young pacer very similar to Ishant Sharma has to make sure that the pressure and success of international cricket doesn’t get to him. As far as the other two are concerned they need to continue the good work and give good performances in both the IPL and the ranji trophy.

India have their batting sorted; but the bowling continues to be a big worry. Zaheer khan seems to be the only one to be missing in the list due to his continual strong performances in spite of all his injuries. The long and short of it is that: You need 20 wickets to win test matches on a continuous basis. In comparison to top ranked teams Australia seem to have a super pace battery with Johnson , Lee, Clark, Bracken, Siddle, Hilfenhaus, Bollinger, McKay, Tait and now Harris all rearing to go and firing on all cylinders when fit.

As experts say gyms and training is all worthwhile but the only thing that helps bowlers is spending hours and hours at the nets doing nothing but BOWLING!!!

The Indian team may have retained their number two ranking in ODIs despite the loss in the tri-series finals, but their insipid showing does not augur well for the World Cup, which is just over a year away. The worrying aspect is that this is not a one-off loss. India have been faltering in the finals way too often in recent years and in most cases, it is the strong batting line-up that has let them down. The Dhaka final had a similar tale to tell. This is one aspect India will need to work on very hard if they want to be seen as strong contenders for the 2011 World Cup.

Cricket may be a team game, but it is important that each and every individual takes up certain responsibility and tries to fulfil it to the hilt, especially in such crunch games. Starting with the openers, Virender Sehwag can play only one way and should continue doing so, but his partner Gautam Gambhir could look at adopting a slightly cautious in case Sehwag is doing well. To be fair to Gambhir, he has been doing an excellent job and was plain unlucky to be dismissed in the finals, but then things could have been different had he decided to take his time and not attempted strokes from the word go.

Virat Kohli had a great series, but unfortunately failed on the D-day. While one can’t be too harsh on him as he is still relatively inexperienced, his shot selection was rather disappointing for a man in prime form. Kohli needs to realize that such purple patches don’t come in your career often and hence you must make the best use of it. The plus point in Kohli’s favour is that he has proved to be a quick learner – the transformation from scoring 30s and 40s to hundreds has been rather swift. He now just needs to carry on the good work.

Like Kohli, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni’s shot selection was also questionable. But then that’s the flip side of being aggressive. When it doesn’t work, it ends up looking rather ugly. India would dearly hope the experienced duo can get their act together in future finals. That is because if they fire, there is very little chance of India losing, such will be the brutality of their attack. In short, the Indian batters need to work out a proper mechanism when it comes to competing in finals.

To be brutally honest, the situation is equally bad in the bowling department, if not worse. And a lot of it has to be attributed to the non-stop cricket the Indians have been playing (for some weird reason, mostly against Sri Lanka) as well as the power play restrictions. Zaheer Khan has clearly lost the edge he held over batsmen over six months back and his partner Ashish Nehra’s fitness concerns have comeback to haunt him again. To lose Nehra in a final was a big setback for India and vindicates the selectors’ stance to keep him away from the Test squad. Harbhajan Singh continues to bamboozle us all and this has been haunting India for a dangerously long time. Time for some soul searching, boys.