Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Perth: Proving ground for Indian cricketers

Perth: Proving ground for Indian cricketers

Third test between India and Australia is to commence in less than 24 hours from now. All is set for a pace attack by the Australia as the WACA pitch is set to favor the pace battery since so many years and with the fame of proving a grave yard for the batsmen from all corners of the world. The beauty of life and game lies with the constant flow and Indians have to forget the happenings, controversial umpiring decisions, and non sporting behavior of Australian team at and during the Sydney test. Though the fetch of the series is already decided with 2-0 unbeatable lead in four test match series by Australia but still battle is on as Australia will go all out for a straight 17th test win and India will fight it for regaining the pride and honor by winning the rest of two test matches of the series.

As this is the all out, do or die situation for the Indians, needs to prove it was not the defeat of skills and talent of Indians at the Sydney but the umpiring was the reason of defeat hence for India the only option left is “Offence is the best defense” . India needs to come out with sheer aggression and attacking the Australians all the way when the team will take the field at WACA tomorrow. Every Indian player need to adopt the causal and not bothering about opponent attitude of Dhoni, shown during the Twenty-20 world championship in South Africa and get inspired from the success run of sourav after the come back to team, experience of Sachin of playing at WACA will be there to help and if the Indian team members decide to concentrate on the role play of self, Indian victory will not be a miracle for me.

Ever since the first foot landing on the Kangaroo land, Indians are facing the problem with the settling of famous bating line up. Failure of in form batsman, of recently conclude home series against Pakistan, Wasim Jaffar is proving itching of wound for the Indians. In these situations I will select the following playing eleven for Perth Test, in order of batting
1. Virendra shewag
2. M.S. Dhoni
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Sourav Ganguli
6. V V S Laxman
7. Captain’s Option
8. Irfan Pathan
9. Anil Kumbale
10. Eshan Sharma
11. R. P. Sing


For the captain’s option I will come with two names to choose from Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Kartik. If the Yuvraj is chosen by the captain he will play at number seven but if Kartik [ To whom I am including for his performance at Canberra and to provide a little bit relaxation for Dhoni with availability of another wicket keeping option in the playing eleven, as this might help Dhoni to concentrate on batting and return back to his normal game of hitting hard to red leather] gets favor from the captain, I will prefer him to see at opening slot with Shewag and Dhoni at his normal position of six down. Sachin and Yuvi [if included] will fill the gap in the spin attack created by excluding Harbhajan, Rolling the arms by the Saurav will not only help the speedsters to change the ends but also will add a different variety in the Indian attack.

No comments: