Monday, January 21, 2008

Australian cricket in retrospect of WACA defeat

Australian cricket in retrospect of WACA defeat

World champions of cricket were beaten by touring Indians comprehensively at WACA on Saturday; the defeat is more painful and humiliating because of being under the favorable ground conditions for the home team and that too on the track with fame of being one among the fastest track of the world in the presence of four topmost speedsters from the Australia. Surely the doubtable LBW umpiring decision went against the Andrew Symonds in second inning will find a place in defeat analysis of Australian team management but baring this and decision of giving out to Sachin Tendular in the first inning, umpiring standards in this match were good hence all this will be considered as the human mistakes of umpiring and surely ignore during the serious analysis.

Sydney storm was proving a cause of precaution for Australian cricketers for opting use of their famous non gaming tool sledging and defeat has proved how effective this tool is for the Australian wins.

Aggressive and grouped appealing, yet another tested Australian winning tool was on the hold during this match because of the fear that umpiring disputes of Sydney might force ICC match officials to go harsh with Australian players in this aspect and come forward with decision of ban for Australian captain or few players. Yet another and more important reason for keeping this tool on hold was the question mark on the sportsmanship and compatibility of Australians for playing the game in its true spirit.

In absence of these two non gaming skills Australian cricketers seemed hampered to such great extend that team was forced to pay the price in the form of defeat. In fact all the time during this time Australians were looked as without answer for the calculated aggression and calm body postures of Indians.

Including the forth speedsters in the playing eleven proved yet another nail in defeat coffin of Australia. Look at the result Australians are facing a punishment for slow over rate in the form of 10% cut in match fees [captain 20%] but more importantly on the day 3, when Indians were struggling by loosing five wickets in the pre lunch session in the second inning, Australian captain was forced to choose the part time bowlers to boost the over rate and those 21 over proved sufficient for Indian recovery, set an almost impossible victory target of 413 runs for the home team. This was the last nail in the defeat coffin of Australians.

Cricket is the game of diversified abilities and skills; you can’t emerge as winner by concentrating on just one aspect of the game. Look at the Indian attack of medium pacers, no one of them was considered for anything heroic and nor any of them performed in the manner but 2-3 wickets by each of them accumulated the reason of collapse of famous strong batting line up Australians have. Absence of Hyden and non performance with fame by Roger can also be considered as the reason for this failure.

Don’t assume that I am ignoring the talent and skills Australians have but the proper implementation of these was surely lacking at WACA. Might the defeat has been avoided if the any of 1-2 top order batsman had shown the aggression shown by the Jhonson towards the dying moments of the game, because in those situations it was quite possible that famous nervousness and Indian attitude of being relaxed at regular intervals had helped Australians to clinch an impossible looking victory.

As for as the Indian team is concerned, this is yet another among several lessons for them since the famous overseas win against the mighty West Indians under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar, playing like the single unit is always bringing victory for the team and glory for the nation. Surely all the four playing days Indians were appearing more coagulated unit in compare of Australian players. It can be said fortunate for Indians that their famous relaxing attitude after taking eight second inning Australians wicket did not proved price paying factor, other wise there were chances that night those two additional over for search of a paid wicket bowled by captain Anil Kumbale might resulted in an Indian defeat. Similarly during the ninth wicket partnership famous Indian nervousness was there Indians were seem running without ideas, they started to set the field according to play of lower order Australian players.

War of supremacy between world champions and emerging world champions will resume at Adilade in few days from now. A good cricketing show is ahead, hope the Indians will keep the Sydney humiliation alive, which resulted as their win at WACA and Australians will leave nothing unturned for bouncing back from the defeat shadows.

No comments: