India had one of its worst ever world cup this time around. Its a pity that a team led by a man who, for me, was one of the very few Indian cricketers who kept improving with every match, had to go down so unceremoniously. But the hard truth is that India did not deserve a place even in the semifinals.
We had the talent, or so we believed. Indians are known to be the best players of spin. But in the last few years, spinners have really caused havoc. How many times have we seen Sachin get out to spinners lately? From Ashley Giles to Abdur Razzak, the spinners have had the better of him especially when he was new to the crease. Ganguly, who is known to hit towering sixes against spinners was found wanting against Bangladesh. In the world cup match against Srilanka, Uthappa seemed to be in a hurry against Vaas. The way he batted, it looked as if the team strategy was to finsh the game even before Murali got his hands on the ball! Dhoni "walked" when wrapped on the pads by Murali, even before he appealed. Now, how often do you see that !!
Gone are the days when we cheered Sachin as he danced down the track a million times against Warne, arguably the best spinner the game has seen. Ironically, the younger batsmen in the team play against the faster bowlers better. Sandip Patil, an explosive batsman of the yester years, was concerned whether he would be able to sight the ball when he went for his first West Indies tour. True, the faster bowlers of this era are nowhere as scary as those of the 70s and early 80s- a period when helmets were just worn for a more stylish look.So where do we stand in the end? We cant play Murali and we cant play Brett Lee. Once Sachin, Saurav, VVS and Rahul retires, who are going to make the much hyped about "Strong Indian batting line-up"? Yuvraj, for me is the only answer. Sehwag maybe. Who are going to be the others? We havent seen a single batsman since the entry of these two who has come anywhere close.
Every 3 years, we have had a new problem. When Srinath and Prasad hung their boots, we asked "Who next?" Then we saw the advent of a flurry of talented quicker bowlers in Agarkar, Zaheer, Balaji, Irfan,Munaf, RP Singh, VRV Singh and Sreesanth. Then came the problem of a wicket-keeper who can at least look like a batsman. We tried M.S.K. Prasad, Ajay Ratra, Vijay Dahiya, Deep Dasgupta, Parthiv Patel etc. Now we have found two stable batsmen who can also do the glove work excellently-Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik. The latest question is, a question which we, even in our wildest dreams, thought we would not have to answer stares back at us- Who are going to make-up the Indian batting line-up in future? Lets hope that we can find answers to it as we found to more difficult problems.
