Some Reasons for Defeat in England

Some reasons that I have shortlisted for India’s defeat

1) Selection: The selection of the playing XI has been a bit tricky, India have not picked horses for courses…Selecting Raina ahead of Yuvi in 1st test was baffling and more so baffling by picking raina for 3rs test, after a poor 2nd test Raina should have been replaced. Virat Kohli could have been given chance and he would also have added more value by his medium pace bowling which would have come handy in English conditions and we have been missing a handy 4th medium pace(slow) bowler.Picking Mishra for 3rd test was more surprising, the wicket was very green; on the 1st day of the test it was difficult to find a difference between the wicket and the outfield. India should have gone with all 4 pace attack. Picking Mishra confused me no end because England had 4 left handed batsmen in top 7, hitting with the spin made their life easy.

2) Initiatives: India have failed to grab the initiatives, they made chances but was not able to convert it into something big. India were able to land light punches on England but was not able to give the killer blow on England which was very important. Chances were made like in 2nd test India had England on the mat but still they made a strong come back through broad and swann, which in the end resulted in India’s loss. Even the batsmen have failed to make an impact someone like Gautam Gambhir made a very good 38 in 3rd test but failed to make a big one, some like Abhinav Mukund failed to convert a good start to match winning innings. This is where England have made a big impact, there have been 2 double centuries and 3 100s so far in 3 test matches.

3) Patience: Indian batsmen have not been patient enough to fight it out in the middle. Players like Abhinav Mukund and Raina have given away their wicket too early. They should learn something from players like Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Dravid, and Ali Cook. KP was struggling for form before India series and even during the 1st test where he scored an unbeaten 200, he was struggling for the first 100 runs but he didn’t throw it away, in fact made a fight back against the India. Even Ali Cook had a very poor series till the 3rd test but he made a grand comeback with a double in 3rd test. The impact of the comeback innings shows your real character, it isn’t easy to come back fighting all odds. Someone like Raina is always seen committing same mistake, he should certainly take Cook as an example of how to make the comeback when going gets tough.

4) Runs: I just feel India have not been able to rotate the strike that often easily; they have kind of stuck at one end. Rotating strike regularly disturbs the line and length of the bowlers which India have failed to do it and neither have they taken the attack on English bowlers. Whenever Indian has taken attack on the English bowlers their line and length have been wayward. In 3rd test when MS took an attack on them in both the innings they were found wanting and they were clueless. Indian batsmen have been stuck at same end for long time which leads to pressure, which in turn leads to a wicket. Blaming on the bowlers would be very wrong as batsmen have failed to put up a score on the board. If India would have been able to make a big score in 1st innings, there would have been spring in the stride of bowlers, you would have seen more catching and attacking positions, the bowlers and the captain would have enjoyed the luxury of runs, more pressure would have been created on England batsmen, and more importantly the wicket/pitch would have detoriated which would have benefited the Indian bowlers and spinners specially, India have bowled on fresh wickets which have made batting a bit easy for their batsmen. India has failed to score a 300 in this series so far.

5) Margin of defeats: The margins of defeats in 1st two tests and the way India have lost in this series that is having a huge effect, and coming back from such defeats is never easy. The morale in the dressing must be very low after such huge defeats especially when you are the number 1 team in tests. There was only one man who could have raised the morale of the team, but that man himself has not been able to score a big one. Sachin Tendulkar is the only man who could have raised the morale of the team very easily by scoring a big one, if Sachin was able to score a big 100 then that would have given some thing for the team to cheer about, not only it would have made India make a big total but also made all other players feel happy and good about something. We have had almost nothing to cheer about in this series, other than a few handful performances, we have been poor in this series.

6) Lower Middle order batsmen of England have made a huge impact in this series, someone like Broad, Bresnan, Swann and Prior have added more runs that the top order of India. England have also made comebacks from poor positions, when a team makes a comeback from loosing or poor position it actually raises the morale of the team no end. England would have loved the way Swann and Broad made a comeback in 1st Innings of 2nd test; it would have given them a lot of confidence. Whereas Indian lower middle order like Bhajji, MS have not been able to make a big contribution.
The morale of the team has gone from bad to worse and there has been dropping shoulders too early in the match.

Reasons like No Practice Games, not going to WI, injury to Zaheer Khan and other players actually don’t hold any truth because If you take the reason of Not enough warm up games but then after playing 2 tests and 2 warm up games what has India done in 3rd test, playing 2 test matches and 2 warm up games actually didn’t improve our performance. Reason like not going to WI, we need to consider that WI team was a 2nd string team, and players who went there like MS, Raina have also failed to make an impact in this series. Injury is part and parcel of the game, what happened to Zak was unfortunate it could have happened to anyone at any time you can’t blame excess or lack of cricket to it and since we were the number one team in tests how could we just hope on one bowler to take all the wickets. Even someone like England have faced injuries in this series Tremlett was injured and was replaced by Bresnan who has performed brilliantly with both bat and ball, even their best bat Trott got injured but then Bell has taken his place with utmost responsibility. So players who replace the injured players should be good enough to fill that void in the team to benefit the team.

To end I would say this series have been disappointing but still as a cricket lover winning and losing is part and parcel of the game, sometimes we lose and most often we win. We should stand by the team rather than being critical of the performance. We have been number one for around 20 months which has been a good journey and let’s hope we would reach there once again very soon.
We should accept that England has played well in this series and they deserve to be number 1 but let’s see how long they be number 1.

Ricky Singh for DieHard Cricket Fans