WEll, what a ****ing **** hole of a day that was.
But while being bowled out for 36 is hilaribad, I have seen many many many teams get bowled out in a session. Australia have had a number of such innings and have been able to bounce back. Dunno what it is about modern cricket that makes them ripe for such lollapses.
I was more disappointed by what happened before and after the 36 all out. We had great fields yesterday and good plans to get batsmen out. But seemed like we just gave up even though 90 is a decent amount of runs, especially when you have just been bowled out for 36. I am not expecting to win but surely getting a side 5 or 6 down for 90 is doable, even without Shami. But we just went back to generic 3 slips, a gully and a short leg and aimless bowl ball after ball without any plans.
And what happened the first two days is what made it so much tougher for ourselves. Having been 180/3, not going on to make 350 and then dropping 4 chances and 2 half chances which could have well seen us bowl out Aus for 100 in their home conditions. With us doing better and winning those couple of key moments, we could have set Aus 250 to chase even with the 36 all out. We could well have lost even then, esp. with just 3 bowlers but it was stupid the way we fielded.
All is not lost though. I hope the hubris of Hazlewood is what entire Australian team feels right now, coz they are really not as good as they may think they are, today's amazing bowling spell notwithstanding. They may bowl better and go wicketless on another day if the edges beat the bat or few more go to no man's land. I hope the team can keep the faith. You don't become bad overnight. Hopefully we see Rahul, Jadeja and Pant come back next game for Saha, Shaw and Virat. I dont think we can win with just 4 bowlers without both Shami and Ishant. Ashwin taking 5/70 and consistently getting the better of guys like Wade, Labu, Green and Burns is a good sign. Hopefully this fires up instead of holding us down and a good series can be had.
It has been a hallmark of this side to play well for a number of sessions overseas in SENA conditions and then lose the game with bad cricket within a session. It has even haunted us in ODI cricket. I felt a number of the batsmen were mentally slightly less switched on today than they were on Day 1 and them being that split second later than they were on Day 1 made all the difference.
Of course, many congratulations to Australia and esp. Paine and Cummins, whom I think are the stars of the game for them. To come back from a tough day and bowl the kind of lengths they did showed some real fire had been passed to them overnight. Extremely well done and that was some spell of fast bowling to watch. In a way, you cant even say it was a shameful performance by India, the bowling was really that good and every bloody ball moved just enough to take the edge and everything went to hand. Amazing!!!
