Black Saturday

A day India and Pakistan will never forget………

I am taking a break from analyzing the teams and their chances in this world cup to speak about a day which has made its way into world cup annals as one in which the so-called minnows overcame all odds to defeat their illustrious counterparts.

Bangladesh is a team which no longer deserves to be called a minnow. They are showing tremendous improvement in all aspects of the game and their place among the test playing nations is well deserved. They displayed ample proof of that by a comprehensive thrashing of India today at Trinidad. It was the first game of the world cup for both teams and the Bangladeshis could not have asked for a better start to the tournament.

Complacency…overconfidence…many experts might use these words to describe the way India played today. I choose to simply say that they were outplayed in all parts of the game. True it might have been a different story had Dravid decided to bowl first….but the fact remains that he chose to bat first and they batted poorly. The Bangladesh bowlers did the basics right and were disciplined right from the start. They gave nothing away to the Indians and reaped rich rewards.

Slow pitches…Left arm spinners….this has come to be the cause for India’s failures in the recent past. There was a time when no spinner to bowl to an Indian line up without getting walloped, but this is no longer the case. The Indians just don’t like to graft. Ganguly did his best but threw it away when he should ideally have looked to play the full fifty overs. Yuvraj was the one man who looked fluent from the word go but could not go on to make the much-needed big score. In the it was the last wicket pair of Munaf and Zaheer who had to take them to a score which made them think they could defend.

The aspect of India’s loss today which worries me most was the lack of enthusiasm in the field when they came out to bowl. They knew they had a low score on the board, they knew they needed to make early inroads to have a chance of winning. But they seemed to come out with a feeling they would just roll over the Bangladeshi batsmen. They almost looked as though they were just waiting for the batmen to make mistakes rather than make things happen. It was then that they needed to show some real urgency and put the pressure on the batsmen. Instead there were easy runs given away and absolutely no pressure on the batsmen. It was then that Dravid’s deficiency as a captain was displayed. He might be a good thinker of the game and excellent at reading the game. But he is certainly not a good leader of men, unlike a Ganguly or a Graeme Smith. This is also where the wicket keeper comes into play. Good wicket keepers can bring the team alive by constant chattering and encouragement, but there was absolutely no sound from Dhoni behind the stumps. Karthick definitely wins over Dhoni in that regard.

All said and done, it was a simply superb performance from Bangladesh. It was heartening to see the improvement made by the team as a whole. What was even more heartening that the team is so young and show signs of going places. The fielding was simply outstanding and India could learn from them in this regard. The way the youngsters came out all guns blazing was amazing to watch. One particular incident stood out : Zaheer Khan has his tail up after getting a wicket, charges in and hits Tamim Iqbal on the throat….the response – two smacking hits to the boundary the second an audacious shot coming down the track….was simply superb to watch. The future of Bangladesh cricket is in good hands.

Well the only consolation for India is that they weren’t the worst team on the day…Pakistan were even worse!!!! Ireland, playing their first world cup bundled them out for 132 and managed to overhaul that in spite of a few jitters!!! The Irish are playing with a wonderful spirit and have quite a few supporters in the windies. But its indeed a sad end to Inzy’s last world cup though he has already lifted the cup in 1992. Hopefully the people of Pakistan will not remember him for this terrible loss.

All in all a bad day for the subcontinent. I guess it would need another rollicking from the Indian media to get their team going before it is too late.