It is said that it is easy to reach top but difficult to stay there. Team India may be feeling something similar as it was outclassed by West Indies in all the departments. Once again, it seemed that Indian players were only concentrating on getting Gayle out and nobody considered Dwayne Bravo to be equally big a threat. Once again team India showed it can be as vulnerable on certain occasions as it seems indestructible on some other. Right from the toss, India floundered and batting first, the openers found the Windies pace attack too hot to handle. Taylor and Edwards ensured that India did not get off to a flyer. Fidel Edwards got rid of Rohit Sharma in very first over, extra bounce doing the trick. MSD has batted at no 3 for the tournament till now and sudddenly Suresh Raina was promoted to that position. With conditions favouring pace bowling, both Raina and Gambhir could not prolong their stay at the crease.
Yuvraj once again showed his true class and with Yusuf Pathan gave India a chance to fight back and constructed a respectable total. Once again the dissapointment in the batting was MSD. He scored a meagre 11 off 23 balls which surely does not suit his stature. Known to be a captain to lead by example, Captain Cool only seemed like Captain Fool on the field. This clearly shows that the batting order needs a rethink. Yusuf Pathan can give a dynamic start to the inning with Gambhir and is mostly wasted down the order. The No 3 and 4 positions are best suited for Raina and Sharma who also can bat in starting overs if an early wicket falls, Number 5 and 6 to Yuvraj and Dhoni gives the lower middle order strength and Irfan, Harbhajan and Zaheer can give nice finishing touches.
In the bowling also, the resources of part timers Raina and Sharma who were so effective in the IPL are mostly unutilised and Zaheer does not look in his full swing yet. Having said that, nobody can take the credit from Dwayne Bravo who took the game away single handedly from the defending champions. The all round display of four wickets and half century made him an undoubted man of the match. Only Chris Gayle was considered a threat as per his reputation and nobody gave a second look at other players in the team. Same thing happened for the Mumbai Indians with the likes of Jayasuriya and Tendulkar, nobody considered a crafty Bravo an equal threat, whereas it turned out that Mumbai won most of the matches on his performances only.
Now India has to win both it's game which are against a wounded England and the mighty Proteas who have tamed the West Indians as well. Still, India now has to depend on how England plays against Windies even if it wins both the matches. Well, all the Indian fans will hope that India plays to it's true caliber and reaches semis.
Till then, let's keep our fingers crossed.
The author, Kartiik Kulkarni blogs at http://rebelinpeace.blogspot.com
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