Depressing

At some time in the future, I will be able to look back and appreciate the unbelievable, inimitable innings of Shahid Afridi - today however it fills me with depression. It was brutal, ruthless and cruel. There was absolutely nothing Rahul Dravid as captain or anyone could have done except hope that he mishit one. Usually such Afridi innings last a much shorter while. Then he either gets out around 40 or he settles down to a more reasonable run-a-ball rate and then gets out after a while. This was different. It was the type of innings that he could play only once in a 100 attempts or so. Unfortunately it happened at Kanpur on April 15th 2005. It made a competitive total seem pathetically hopeless.

Dravid's innings was a true captain's knock - an occurrence after a long time for India. Kaif also played superbly, also Mongia coming down the order was a bit of a gem. But an ODI that was quite uncharacteristically turning out to be an equal contest between bat and ball was cruelly hijacked by the brilliance of one man. I don't mean to be churlish here - but I can't help thinking that the innings was a fluke - as talented a striker Afridi is, to manage something like that there has to be some element of luck somewhere - by that I don't mean getting a chance or anything - because he did not give any, not until he was caught of a no-ball in the 80s anyway - but for something like that everything has to go right every ball and there has got to be some element of chance in it - which is why Afridi himself has only twice ever played such an innings.

Of course I don't believe that it is *impossible* to stop Afridi. I believe Balaji bowled a terrible over - the 3rd one - which really set Afridi up and propelled him to this achievement. 2 sixes off the first 2 balls of a rusty Kumble meant that the match was all but iver unless he got out imediately. He didn't. Whenever encountered with such a challenge, we should think about what the Aussies would have done. McGrath would have made sure every ball to Afridi was just short off length, the majority hitting him in the ribs - clearly we have no bowler who can come close to McGrath but at least we could try. Zaheer did fairly well, I must say - although he was lucky he could start off bowling to Butt. Balaji started badly, under normal circumstances 1 bad over is accpetable at the start - but unfortunately circumstances yesterday were not *normal*

I don't think Dravid did too much wrong trying out all different bowlers. Also you can't really fault him for batting first - after all though the wicket seams, it was expected to and did get slow and low. We should have played out the first spell by Rana. More than Afridi, I believe Rana is the difference between the 2 teams. No Indian bowler has been able to move the ball like him - and it would be an absolute shock if he now does not retain his place in the team above that good-for-nothing Shoaib Akhtar. The only mistake probably was sending Dhoni in at 3. As I had said in an earlier post it makes no sense to put Dhoni and Sehwag up there together - certainly not on a wicket that is doing something.

I think we need to think out of the box here. I know it is a bit weird but I would take a huge risk and go for Agarkar in the next game. Clearly, Balaji's confidence is shattered. And for once rather than go by my brain, I would prefer to go with my instinct and my heart - hence, Agarkar over Nehra