So here we go again… It’s India versus (no need to guess) Sri Lanka in a must-win game. But wait, there’s a twist for a change. Both the team have come here with under-strength sides, and have had mixed results. The Lankans, though, are in a better position as compared to India as they still have a game against Zimbabwe left. And, hence it will be the Indians who will be under the pump during the crucial game.

They have beaten their Asian rivals comprehensively during the first exchange between the two sides in the series. But, the horrific stuff India dished out against the home side in not one but two games will make Lanka believe that they have a slight advantage going into the game. And, for the Indians to undo that, they first need to get their minds out of the muddle.

Cleary, they haven’t been thinking anywhere close to smartly. The bewilderment of their batting fiasco against the Zimbabweans will still be fresh in their minds. Only when they get over it will they be able to perform to their ability. For that to happen they need to stay and think positive.

This series has been a real test for young skipper Suresh Raina. One can only hope that he has learnt some strong lessons quickly, and would make lesser mistakes in the do-or-die encounter against the Lankans. While it was apt of him to point fingers at the inability of his openers to get the team going, it is only fair that he makes an effort to lead from the front.

True, his spectacular fielding makes a fair difference. However, it is not enough. He needs to be more active as a skipper too. His forgetful nature will not do India any good. It was nothing short of weird that he refused to take the batting powerplay during the winning effort against Lanka, and he literally forgot about the bowling powerplay as the Zimbabwean batsmen were massacring his bowlers.

Disappointing as it may sound, bowling was always going to be India’s Achilles Heel in this tournament. Ashok Dinda and Umesh Yadav have little to show apart from their IPL experience. And, the Zimbabwean batsmen have exploited their weaknesses to the hilt.

Even the comparatively pedigreed Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha haven’t been up to the mark. Unfortunately, there isn’t much option for India to chop and change either.

R Vinay Kumar has returned home injured, and the only other alternative the have is to try out Abhimanyu Mithun, himself a rookie, so no miracles should be expected. And so, the burden of shouldering the extra responsibility would once again be on spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan.

On the contrary, India has a much more experienced and talent batting line up. And their failure is what has been extremely disheartening. Except for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, almost everyone has looked out of sync. Dinesh Karthik and Murli Vijay have failed to convert their starts.

As such, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to test out Naman Ojha. Among the others, Raina is too busy figuring out his captaincy, which must change. Also, India will be served well if the big-hitting Pathan can get some runs. And, though Jadeja got a half-century in the last game, his confidence would be boosted if he can achieve it without the help of the umpires.

All in all, India have an unenviable task on hand. And, with none of the seniors around to guide them through, it would be rather fascinating to see how these young turks respond to the crisis situation.

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.

A 2-0 scoreline suggests a one-sided contest, but believe me the India-Bangladesh Test series was far from one. In both the Tests, the host nation had India in trouble, but struggled to take full advantage of it and ended up conceding the series rather meekly in the end.

India, on the other hand, did impress in bits and phases. However, overall their performance against the lowly-placed Bangladeshis left a lot to be desired, the final result not withstanding. Still, a series win is a series win and India can take in a number positives as they head into the next challenge – a tough home series against South Africa.

The biggest plus for the visitors from this series was the rhythm-rediscovery of Ishant Sharma. The lanky paced, who seemed to be losing his efficiency in recent times, was nearer to his best against Bangladesh. Okay, so it wasn’t the stiffest opposition and thus one cannot read a lot into it.

But, at least this series will give Ishant the much-needed confident boost. He picked up wickets at regular intervals, and more importantly, was successful in maintaining a proper line and keeping the runs down even when he was not getting wickets.

Though not as important, this series meant a lot to Zaheer Khan too. He hadn’t been at his best in the recent series’ since making a comeback. And, as he himself admitted, he is still to rediscover his best.

Yet, the match-winning spell on what turned out to be the final day at Mirpur was something he desperately needed. The seven-wicket haul in the second innings will be etched in the left-arm seamer’s memory for a while, considering India were struggling to break through at one stage.

Deservedly, he ended up picking up the Man of the Match as well as the Man of the Series awards.

If Ishant and Zaheer were hot, there were some equally disappointing performances among the bowlers as well. Sreesanth, who announced his comeback to Test cricket with a five-wicket haul just recently, looked totally lost.

He sprayed the ball all over to be taken for plenty of runs. To add to the frustration, he bowled plenty of no-balls and to make things worse, ended up pulling a hamstring. Harbhajan Singh remained a disappointment in the one Test he played while both Amit Mishra nor Pragyan Ojha proved potent in the one outing they got, but weren’t eye-catchy in any sense.

But for the failure in the first innings at Chittagong, the batting lived up to the expectations. Gautam Gambhir continued to pile on the runs, though he missed out on a sixth consecutive Test hundred. His opening partner Virender Sehwag did not seem interested in playing the long innings against a weak opposition, but made sure he gave the side a good platform in Gambhir’s company.

All the experienced hands – Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dhoni – made substantial contributions when needed, Yuvraj Singh remaining the sole disappointment.

All in all, some good practice for India ahead of the South Africa series.

In the end, India managed to save the Ahmedabad Test pretty easily on the final day, thanks to solid efforts from Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar coupled by good contributions from nightwatchman Amit Mishra and VVS Laxman. However, while the Test ended in a stalemate, the game of cricket ended up on the losing side. Amidst all the talk of ‘saving’ the most sacrosanct version of cricket, an unresponsive pitch was the last thing Test cricket needed. While seven centuries were scored and plenty of runs amassed on both sides, one can say that there was ample entertainment for the crowds. But there was no ‘test’ as such for the batsmen while bowlers bled profusely. In short, the contest that makes the five-day game intriguing was completely missing.

The authorities concerned have got to make sure that barren lands stay away from the Test arena as much as possible if they want to protect the future of Test cricket. Such surfaces also dampen the enthusiasm of the bowlers, as even the best look insipid, which was evident in Muttiah Muralitharan’s (the highest wicket-taker in world cricket) extremely ordinary figures. How then can you expect the less talented ones to perform? As it is, the bowlers are suffering in the various abridged editions. And more shockers like Ahmedabad will only lead to deterioration in the standard of the bowling in international cricket, which is anyways at an all-time low.

Speaking of the match per se, it was undoubtedly dominated by Sri Lanka, with India having their sessions only on the first and final day. Batting wasn’t a tough task out in the middle so it is the bowlers who did well that deserve most of the credit. And the first name that instantly comes to mind is medium-pacer Chanaka Welegedara. Considering the fact that he was drafted in at the last minute following an injury to regular new ball bowler Thilan Thushara, Welegedara came up with an exceptional performance. It was his devastating spell on a moist pitch during the opening day that set the tone of the game for the Lankans. Getting Virender Sehwag, Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar is no mean feat no matter whatever the conditions and no praise can be too hight for Welegedara for that effort. The most impressive aspect of his bowling was that all his dismissals were either bowled or lbw, proving he is a nagging, accurate pacer.

From India’s side, Zaheer Khan was not equally effective in comparison. But the fact that he bowled without pain and claimed a couple of wickets will definitely give him and the team a lot of confidence as they head into the next Test. The same though cannot be said about Ishant Sharma. Again, the pitch was a factor, but even otherwise he hasn’t looked at that penetrative best recently. Meanwhile, the spinners from both sides would like to forget the match and move on.

This was a batsman’s Test no doubt. Dravid, Dhoni, Dilshan, the Jayawardenes, Gambhir and Tendulkar, all helping themselves to centuries. But even they would like to face sterner challenges. After all, that is what Test cricket is all about.