SJS,
They did a phenomenal job.
BUT, given how the commentators kept on referring to the upcoming SA series, my overriding thought during their partnership was how poor both of their techniques looked against the quicker bowlers
Batting on leg stump, not moving across, playing with an open face and being troubled by bouncers on that deck is hardly a recipe for success
I do not hold a brief for either. They just dd a great job for India today on the conditions that existed. I don't even say whether the conditions were good or bad. But to tun them down after they put up nearly three hundred runs in partnership in a day is strange to put it mildly. Tp suggest that youngsters like Jiwanjot and Chand (who are they) should be the replacements for the g=future is amazing. Where do people churn up this stuff from. It is heart breaking really I cant think of another term for how one feels.
How many of you watch domestic Indian cricket? Are you aware of the bowling standards there. How do you think Jadeja scores triple hundreds? These Jiwanjot's and Chands may turn out to be the next Gavaskars and Sehwags but what evidence is there of them being good enough to replace some one who, poor though his recent form has been, has just scored his second Test century against Australia. Murali Vijay has been a terrible disappointment for he was very promising but today he came good. How can we just get up and say he should be dropped. Who says stuff like that except those who have just made up their minds for or against someone.
Sachin should have been dropped, should have probably retired himself but he didn't but if he scores five hundred runs plus in this series people have to shut up and say "well played little fella". You don't then get up and say it was because Australia had a lousy attack. That is churlish.
Of course Australian bowling side is not great. Nor is any other today. The two good bowling sides in the world today are South Africa and Pakistan. The latter being more rounded for the variety in the attack. This is well known but try saying to a fan today that runs are easy to come by and see how people jump up.
The fact is that bowling standards HAVE declined around the world. Have been declining for quite sometime now. This is something to worry about but that is a different matter from running down a specific batsman (or two) after thye score big runs in a big series - for a big series it is. On top of that Murali Vijay IS facing the axe so that pressure is real. If Sachin can have the pressure of his 100th 100 for two yers, why not a youngster facing oblivion which one more failure might have meant.
Why not see his batting from that context - his very existence on the Indian cricket firmament when he came into bat this innings and then rate his batting.
By the way, I know a little bit about cricket and cricket technique. I am afraid I did not notice any serious flaws in both these guys today. Indian batsmen, particularly the younger lot are pretty bad against the quiclker, stuff and lateral movement from the fast bowlers. These two showed better technique than most Indian youngsters have shown for quite some time now.
Pujara's footwork is exemplary and he may turn out to be one of India's most prolific run-hetters in the game. If he does that it will be because of his very sound technique. I am surprised you find faults with it. Yes he runs the ball down to third man but isn;t that the done thing in the last two decades or so. Barring Rahul Dravid, every major Indian batsman of the last two decades has done it. I don't like it because there are better alternatives to it - the conventional late cut is the obvious first choice. But who can say that even to the fan today let alone to a cricketer.
Pujara is a fixture in this Indian side so one doesn't worry about him. He is 25 runs short of his 1000 Test runs in his 12th Test match. As I write his average stands at 65 and the 72 he scored in his first test match remains the only fifty he has scored in these 12 tests. The other four ended in scores of 159, 206 not out, 135 and 162 (batting). If that does not impress Indian fans nothing will unless he gets a facelift and is seen with Deepika Padukone I guess :o) Kidding.
I am more worried about what happened to Murali Vijay. This boy was good. Difficult to say what happened to him. I liked him in his first three test innings. The 33 and 41 on debut against Lee Johnson and Watson. He and Sehwag put on 98 and 116 in the two innings and then in his next test innings, in December 2009, he scored 87 against Srilanka in a 221 run partnership with Sehwag and India scored over 700 runs on a perfect wicket and won by an innings.
Then came IPL 2010 and Murali Vijay reinvented himself. His 458 runs came at 157 per hundred balls and he hit 26 sixes in the 15 games he played. I feel India lost Murali Vijay to IPL 2010. His game changed. In 2009 he had scored his 60 IPL runs at under 90 per 100 balls. Now we were seeing one of the cleanest sixer hitters in India.
Only one Indian cricketer hit more sixes and scored at a faster strike rate than Murali Vijay in that year's IPL and he according to me is another tragedy amongst young Indian talents. His name - Robin Uthappa.
I do not know what will happen with Murali Vijay after this test. Maybe he will again go back to scoring the wayward and low scores he has given over the last couple of years. But then again we have to wit and see. one can only hope that this innings will make Murali realise that the two hours he spent in the morning eschewing all stroke play and seeing off Siddle and Pattinson was wahat he needs to learn to do more often at the highest level and if he manages to learn those lessons the runs of the late afternoon will come back for his talent and stroke play are not in doubt.
But we have to wait and watch.
In the meanwhile the least we can do for our young cricketer is to hope and pray for better sense and better council from seniors. To abuse him and his technique is to take the short cut which the selectors could have taken by dropping him after the Chennai test. Thank God they did not and lets hope the young man pays back with gratitude.