The Mandatory Post-Mortem

I am getting really weary of writing these posts. Another final. Another loss. This should really say it all. But can't stop myself from making some points. Note that henceforth I will refer to the Indian captain as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (shortened HWMNBN). So when HWMNBN won the toss, I had this weird feeling that it would be better to chase. But the lessons learnt in the past of hopeless left-arm trundlers succumbing to the pressure of a final and being plundered of near-300 (often higher) scores in finals would have prompted him to bat first. What he forgot was that against NZ, India have generally done better chasing. Rather they have done worse batting first. In the 2000 ICC Knockout finals in Nairobi when HWMNBN was the World's best ODI batsman India had lost batting first despite his hundred courtesy of an innings for the ages by an injury-ridden Chris Cairns. The similarities between that day and today were eerie. With the exception that HWMNBN was now one of the World's worst ODI batsman and the fact that the African capital hosting the match was different, a lot of things remained the same. Most pertinently, Cairns was once again injury-ridden and was potentially dangerously preserved as a supersub ready to be unleashed when the situation demanded. That was most likely to emerge while chasing a big score. Clearly, Fleming wanted to chase and that should have been reason enough for HWMNBN to field first. But he had other ideas. As it turns out, Cairns was not needed. Other than that, it all went to script just as Fleming would have imagined. But choosing to bat first was one of HWMNBN's less-serious mistakes and hence I would not harp too much on that.

Just as an aside, another negative outcome of the television age in cricket has been the demise of the very polite and pleasant gesture of telling the opposition captain of what one plans to do after winning the toss. When that annoyingly omnipresent Ravi Shastri is out there ready to pounce on the (un)lucky captain who wins the toss with his senseless chatter, the captain often forgets to tell his counterpart of what he wants to do. (Or chooses to ignore him.) This is what happened today. HWMNBN felt no need to tell Fleming of his choice. Or Shastri felt no need to allow him the time to do so. Either way, Fleming had to infer that he was going to field first only from the meaningless conversation between the two Indians. This is very sad, to see another of those little niceties which make cricket the game it is bite the dust.

276 was a fair score. Not great, but not bad either. Given just the score, the team defending it should have backed itself. Indeed a team with a decent attack and a good leader would have defended it at least 7 times out of 10. Unfortunately India suffered from a lack of both. Pathan's lack of pace and peneteration is shocking. If a 20-year old is content to bowl line and length at medium pace and rely entirely on non-existent swing, it is a matter of great concern. Nehra too suffers when the conditions don't suit him. He was his old self bowling one bad ball per over and that is all that is needed with a few chances for a good team like the Kiwis to get off to a flyer. As usual, the axe is likely to fall on Agarkar, one of the most ill-treated cricketers in recent times (along with VVS Laxman) But truth is the damage had been done at the top. Agarkar is a bowler who thrives on getting early wickets. Of course, he has not been at his best, recently. But that is mostly because of the step-motherly treatment given to him by HWMNBN and the management. He is always given short change when the great left-arm kings come back after taking leisurely time-outs. But the worst was reserved for the middle stages of the innings.

After that flier, Harbhajan and Sehwag had bowled well to get India in with a chance. However HWMNBN showed no intentions of supporting them with attacking fields. I will have to write a separate post on how he has destroyed Harbhajan's career as an ODI bowler (while acknowledging that he had supported and encouraged Harbhajan in the early days) But today he refused to give Harbhajan close catchers to prize out wickets when clearly that was the only way the match could have been won. Worse, he did not trust Sehwag, the best bowler of the day to be able to bowl with the field restrictions. He brought in the hapless Pathan who was thrashed for 9 and then Yadav who was hammered for 14. There were several points in the match where India had a chance to turn things around. But this one with Sehwag and Harbhajan bowling well, was the last and decisive one. HWMNBN made a mess of it.

I end by averring that we are unlikely to win any ODI series (and definitely not any final) so long as HWMNBN is in charge. This is a bunch of talented individuals but a very poor team. The weakest link in the team is the leadership, rather the lack of it. Unless, there is a change at the top, we can expect to see more such pathetic defeats in the near future.