Parthian Shot

Well how have you been? I know it’s been quite some time since I hit the blog circuit. Nope this was not a silence before some oncoming storm. Well this is what happened, the Indian Cricket team won the second test match against the English played at Mohali. A match which was clearly heading towards a draw but thanks to some splendid bowling performances by our bowlers.

With a drawn first test, everyone saw India would win the 3 test matches series. I was waiting to celebrate this moment in my next blog. The third test, all India had to do is either win or draw this test to win the series. A special test in more than one ways, this was the Indian Captain Rahul Dravid’s 100th test appearance, which makes him the 6th Indian to do so, and the master batsman Sachin Tendulkar’s becomes the player to make the most number of test appearances for India. This quite a milestone should be celebrated with a victory.

The conditions favored the Indian players, Rahul Dravid won the toss, and elected to field. That’s it, after this, everything went England’s way. England won the third test and that too how, with a margin of 212 runs. A daily printed a cartoon after the test, on Indian Captain Rahul Dravid’s 100th test appearance the entire team scored 100 runs. Probably there should have been someone to warn the Indian Captain of the “Ides of March” before he chose to field.

Well the problem here is consistency; the Indian Cricket team has never been consistent over the period of time. The lack of it made it lose the opportunity to leverage the top position they were in during the test series. The main reason being the failure of the formidable batting line-up the team had. Sachin and Shewag regarded as run machines were totally out of touch through out the series.

Things were starting to look good when the new coach Greg Chappell took over few months back, but now the age old problem of consistency has started creeping up all over again. Hope they bounce back during the 7 One Day series starting March 28, 2006.

A loyal but disappointed,
Indian Cricket Fan