Issues with Indian Cricket
Yet another humiliating defeat overseas. India are the whipping-boy of international cricket: lame-duck captain and abysmal fielding and batting. The bowling, at times disciplined, was still nowhere as good as say the Aussie, SA, Pak or even the English and SL attack. I'd say the Indian bowling right now is on the level of WI or maybe Bangladesh: no bowler capable of bowling consistently over 135kmph. I shudder to think what Australia would've done to India in these conditions.
People have been saying "well, at least it wasn't as bad as England's debacle during the Ashes". However, I'd say that it was even worse, because of the rank inability of the Indians to learn from their mistakes - or even in fact admit that there were any.
Look at the English press, and the former captains - they've been scathing of the performance, and there's been a lot of talk of owning up, of being accountable, of heads rolling. Among the Indians, however, people like Ravi Shastri are not even willing to admit that changes need to be made, that there needs to be a re-haul of the way domestic cricket is played, etc. All of the former players seem very reluctant to honestly put down their opinion of a series that has - except for the one game which was won because SA batters chose to commit suicide because of complacency - been an unmitigated disaster. Shastri keeps saying "I like the intent, I think it's a positive move" about the smallest issues and all the Indian reports keep talking about how SA should be scared etc etc just before the match. No one is willing to stand up and say "look, the fielding is disastrous, and most of the team is mentally weak. They have zero fitness and absolutely no desire to win".
Compared to England's performance, India's was arguably much worse. Yet they're still celebrating that one freak win and talking about the positives that should be taken from the tournament. There's no sense of accountability and absolutely no willingness to face that fact that the players constantly crumble under pressure. There is no demand for an explanation of how they batted during the 4th day. England's team has been FORCED into making changes - India's, because of its meek press and meek ex-players who don't want to tell it like it is and don't want to offend anyone, will continue to rest easy and suffer more humiliating defeats. For a country with a population greater than that of all the other cricket-playing nations put together, it is absolutely incredible that they can't field 11 men who are capable of simple, high-school level fielding. Monty Panesar was repeatedly singled out for his poor fielding and he knew that he'd have no chance unless he improved it. The results are there to see. Munaf Patel? Not a word's been said about him - then again, a large part of the team is at the same level.
I admire England's unwillingness to bury its head in the sand - that is the FIRST STEP in improvement.
Any thoughts?
