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Guess what happens when a Viswanathan Anand walks the greens of a cricket ground and actually puts his brains into the strategy-mind games? May be, that’s what happened to Australia in this edition of Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India annihilating them 2-0 in the four test series.
The third day of the fourth test gave it all away for Australia. When they were served with a completely unexpected strategy, an 8-1 field on the off side tightening the run leak, men from Oz were caught short of imagination. They were caught unaware on the wrong foot. They could not come up with any overpowering plan that would tilt the game in their favor. Instead they cried over it by claiming that Indian tactics were negative. There is something called defence and offence and none should forget that.
Having a good defence is not the same as negative tactics. There is either a defensive stroke or an offensive and a defensive tactic or an offensive. Though there are instances when people called the art of Ashley Giles, of bowling left arm over into the rough, as negative. But the same set of people fail to see the same effect when Shane Warne, the world’s greatest leg spinner ever, bowls around the stumps into the rough and picks a load full of wickets. Is this not double-headed? Or is it that Giles hails from England and Warne from Australia? I would rather call Giles and Warne as defensive more than anything else.
The removal of the tag of invincibles, the dethroning from the world’s best cricket team pedestal, two humiliating test defeats; as the sorry state piles on, it might be getting difficult for the Aussies to handle as they find themselves in unfamiliar waters. It would do a world of good if Australia imbibes humility, which the Indian team has in abundance with Mahendra Singh Dhoni leading from the front.
The third day of the fourth test gave it all away for Australia. When they were served with a completely unexpected strategy, an 8-1 field on the off side tightening the run leak, men from Oz were caught short of imagination. They were caught unaware on the wrong foot. They could not come up with any overpowering plan that would tilt the game in their favor. Instead they cried over it by claiming that Indian tactics were negative. There is something called defence and offence and none should forget that.
Having a good defence is not the same as negative tactics. There is either a defensive stroke or an offensive and a defensive tactic or an offensive. Though there are instances when people called the art of Ashley Giles, of bowling left arm over into the rough, as negative. But the same set of people fail to see the same effect when Shane Warne, the world’s greatest leg spinner ever, bowls around the stumps into the rough and picks a load full of wickets. Is this not double-headed? Or is it that Giles hails from England and Warne from Australia? I would rather call Giles and Warne as defensive more than anything else.
The removal of the tag of invincibles, the dethroning from the world’s best cricket team pedestal, two humiliating test defeats; as the sorry state piles on, it might be getting difficult for the Aussies to handle as they find themselves in unfamiliar waters. It would do a world of good if Australia imbibes humility, which the Indian team has in abundance with Mahendra Singh Dhoni leading from the front.
The days of brains with brawn have come to the fore with Dhoni at the helm of Indian cricket. By the way, is it luck or something else that India won both the matches under Dhoni? Whatever the answer is it promises to be a great season awaiting the Indian cricket fans with a bunch of International matches round the corner and the domestic Ranji season in full flow.
