Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Great Gambler

= MS Dhoni. No doubt he's one of the best to lead India with his astute mind for the game, but Midas, as a nick-name, just seems perfect when things are going your way; not otherwise. Leading by instincts, his enviable calmness on the field and heaps of aggression, were the prime reasons for Team India doing this well ever since he assumed the reigns. Of late though, especially at the on-going T20 WC, I believe he depended a lot more on gambling rather than common sense – Changing the batting order in every match without any acceptable reason - His strategy to move Ravindra Jadeja up the order before Yuvraj and himself (in yesterday’s crucial match against England) was baffling to say the least. The one reason everybody thought he did that was perhaps to ‘shield’ Yuvraj from the barrage of short-pitch stuff from the English. But isn’t Yuvraj your best card? Isn’t he by far the best player of the PULL or the HOOK shot in the current Indian line-up? Wasn’t Yuvraj the man who achieved that breathtaking 36 in 6 against the same team at a similar stage two years back? How can a man, who has always believed in aggression, succumb to a defensive ploy? And obviously that cost the defending champions the match and an premature unexpected exit from the T20 WC '09. Even his team selection in the T20 WC was a bit of a surprise – dropping RP Singh, the most successful T20 bowler for India, arguably! Sorry to say this, but even his own batting has gone for a toss – what with the 'helicopter shot'!? He just can’t seem to hit the ball over the fence (and isn’t he known for that?) I or rather we all expected a '07 encore from Team India, after all weren’t they the ones with the most T20 match-experience under their belt? The "Midas touch" is not the best thing always – didn't we learn that?! Resort back to the winning ways guys…Go TEAM INDIA!

4 comments:

  1. Dear Rohan,

    Why do u say 'premature exit from the T20 world cup'? Does it imply Team India were to exit eventually, without winning ?

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  2. Prayag,

    You're a good reader, seriously.

    Shit, my mistake! Never meant that way :-( I realised that the usage takes an altogether different meaning. Thanks...

    Can I alter it?

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  3. I believe Sehwag's presence could have made a huge difference in the batting. Though Rohit Sharma played his part in league games, but could not find his form in most important super 8s.
    And to our Great Gambler...
    not only the batting order was wrong, I feel the bowling options were so wrong. Why did RP bowl only 3 overs when he just gave 13 runs of them? Dhoni made Zaheer bowl the 19th over even when he was expensive in his previous two. And plus Ishant Sharma also bowled 4 overs for 36. Does'nt Dhoni know that RP was the best in IPL and in WC T20 2007?

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  4. I completely agree with you, Rohan, when you say that Dhoni relied more on gambling with his options rather than relying on common sense. Yuvraj would certainly have been a better bet at No.3
    But as fate would have it, India just had to go out of the T-20 Wc 09

    A few failures which I would like to note would be:

    1. Lack of commitment in the fielding department ( Singles, being easily converted into two's by th opposition )

    2. Yuvraj Singh not being used resourcefully

    3. A wee bit of over-confidence
    ( Read: Raina smiling n laughing at the cameras,sitting in the Lord's balcony when India needed some 10 odd runs in 2 balls )

    Very dissapointing indeed.

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