My Analysis Of The India Pak Test Match Series, Other views are welcome Options

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It is not unusual to read various views after a series have being concluded. As usual some views are irrational and some are not.

I have being reading articles from various critics and ex cricketers about the test match series that recently concluded. Apart from a couple most of the articles demonstrate lack of understanding of the game which comes no surprise to me.

Here are a few comments from writers that make me laugh

1.Dravid's opening the innings was disastrous:

As if we had openers of the class of Sunil Gavaskar and we did not make them play. Gambhir and Jafer both have no proven record and to me they are just average players. What could they have done which Dravid could have not and mind you Dravid made runs in the first 2 tests opening. Hence this statement is erroneous.

2. India lost series because of poor batting

Only in the last innings of the third test is when we did not bat very well. Till then the batting was doing fine. I thought India's first inning effort was quite satisfactory in the last test.

The fact is India lost due to poor and unimaginative bowling. Apart from the hatrick, Indian bowlers have nothing to show. Pak scored 500 runs or more 3 times in the series and that too in a 3 test series. This speaks volumes of the pedestrian bowling of the Indian team.

Mind you the Pak bowling was no better. The major difference was Mohd Asif, without him I doubt they could have won the last match. He was the best bowler between the 2 sides.
IMO the worst bowler was Zaheer Khan who should have not being selected in the first place. He is the dumbest bowler I have come across in the last years. His bowling to Kamran when Pak were 46/6 could be a case study for all on how not to bowl. I have no doubt that soon the Indian selectors will realize that he does not have the temperament or the skill to play at the international level against good sides.



3. Sachin is finished

Hanif Mohd in his recent article has rubbished the above ludicrous view. I am happy that his thinking is above the normal thrash and has stated some excellent views in his article which can be found at cricinfo.com.

Sachin requires no defense, he is above this debate. People ca have their own views but history is already being written and all their silly statements about Sachin not saving games for India will not change it.
Sachin will bounce back and even if he does not, nothing would have changed for the second greatest batsman of all times.

4. It is hard for spinners to succeed in Pak

If a bowler is good enough, he will succeed on any wicket. Kumble had reasonable series as far as wickers are concerned but an average of 69+ is not a good read and some of the blame must go to the poor field placing of Dravid and some ordinary bowling at the other end. Harbajn was disappointing and its lesson for him to concentrate of his game rather than give needless press conferences.

Although Younis Khan and Yousuf scored an unbelievable amount of runs for me there were 2 men in Pak team who were the real heroes, Kamran and Mohd Asif. They were the men of the series for me.

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Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble showed (once again, IMO), that they are simply not good enough when they play outside of India. Harbhajan in particular looked very poor and did not look like taking a wicket. Once again when the pressure was on Sachin he did NOT deliver. How surprising! The Indian team could really learn from the way that Akmal, Razzaq and Akhtar batted - with heart and grit!

The Indian pace bowling, was also quite poor, and I don't know why I typed pace bowling. In actual fact, they are nothing more than a set of medium paced trundlers. Lack of variety was also clear, with three left arm medium pacers, the batsmen only really had to adjust to one bowler to face all three.

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Lack of variety was also clear, with three left arm medium pacers, the batsmen only really had to adjust to one bowler to face all three.

Good point, agreed. Rest of your post I can't. Thanks for contributing.