Same old story. Great promises but none delivered. But what is more bitter than India losing the Test series was the sight of sachin's batting. Pollock and co. may form a good attack. But seeing a player of the calibre of sachin grovel, scratch and shuffle at the crease was an eye sore to say the least. And that too at a time when India needed to score some quick runs!! After this series his very committment to the team's cause would be under scrutiny. I am not accusing sachin of not giving his best for the team. But to bat like the way he did, more so at that critical juncture of play does raises one's eyebrows. The fact that the pitch was no devil was proved by the likes of Dinesh Karthick and Ganguly.
Another highly questionable act was that of Dravid. It was true that the seamers were the major prescence in the team. But in a pitch that was tailor made for the Indian team, persisting with the pace bowlers even after they bowled their hearts out and were going out one by one with injury was a very poor call. Especially with the pitch offering good turn to even Kumble, the wisest thing to do would be to give more overs to sehwag and sachin. Instead we saw Kumble mostly bowling in tandem with pace bowlers. Probably dravid got fixated too much on the success of the pace bowlers, especially sreesanth, and thought the match could be won by their previous successes rather than utilizing the conditions at hand. This is in stark contrast to the Ganguly era. Ganguly as the captain, did a great job in rotating between bowlers. Especially in spin friendly tracks. There was this one instance in the home test against Australia, ganguly recognized that India's strength at such a track was spin, and went ahead with just one seamer in the team. What sachin later did with the ball is now a legend. The least Dravid could have done is acknowledge the strength India had in this pitch.
Talking about Ganguly, it was pleasing to see him play without any inhibitions. He offered glimpses of the glorious past. I would not say he was back 100 percent. As a very big fan of Ganguly, I can say with some confidence that I have observed every single move of his. I could see that the pressure of adding runs to his name did pull his weight down from playing his natural game. He did not make enough effort to protect the tail enders on more than a couple of occasions. But its good to have Dada back in the team, especially in view of the current bad patch that sehwag and sachin are going through. Hope the selectors realize his importance to the Team, especially in the ODIs and select him for the future ODIs.
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