World Cup Final

 It's time to move forward from the WTC defeat. In my pre-match analysis of the teams, I had said that New Zealand had a slight edge, because:

1. Their openers were better equipped to bat out England 

2. Their pace attack was comparatively better.

To add to this, New Zealand had a two-test warm-up series in England. This helped them get acclimatized and discover their best combination for the final. 

The only area where India had the clear advantage was in the spin department. Ashwin and Jadeja were far better than Ajaz Patel, the Mumbai-born left arm spinner who plays for Yorkshire. But the rain, the weather and the pitch ensured that they had minimal impact. Ashwin did take 4 wickets in the match, but Jadeja went wicketless. New Zealand did not even bother to include Patel in the playing XI.

One more thing  which went against India is Bumrah's lack of luck or form.  He had not been that effective after his back surgery.  In the final, he didn't take a single wicket and was out for zero in both innings. This may have been the first test overseas  in which he went wicketless. He needs to find his mojo quickly if India are to do well in tests abroad. 

The decisive  factor which  tilted the scales in favour of the Kiwis was their lower order. Throughout the WTC, the New Zealand lower order had scored more runs per wicket than any other team. In the 1st innings in the  final, India's last 3 wickets put together 12 runs. Their last 5 wickets scored 61 runs. For the BlackCaps, these figures were 57 runs and 114 respectively. 

India were effectively playing with three No 11 batsmen - Bumrah, Ishant and Shami. This is the reason why Siraj was not included in the team as a fourth pacer. It would have weakened the batting considerably.  The only other option was to include Thakur, but the conventional wisdom seems to be that his bowling is not test class, despite his heroics at the Gabba  where he took 7 wickets in the match and scored a 50 in the 1st innings.  So Thakur was left out of the squad of XV.

In hindsight, the omission of Bhuvi  from  the touring party could have cost India the title.  His  swing bowling could have been lethal in the match. Also, he can bat effectively. He has explicitly stated that he is ready to play tests, but it seems  the Indian think-tank want him to prove his fitness in limited overs cricket first.

The match could have been much closer if there had been bright sunshine and no moisture in the pitch to aid the speed merchants. India's  spinners would then have had an opportunity to come into play in the second half of the match.  But it is no use talking about what if scenarios. The team that adapted  best to the situation on the ground won the day.

There is a month for Shastri and Kohli to prepare for the series against England. A bad outcome there could leave question marks over Kohli's captaincy. With the bat,  he is going through a relatively lean patch by his standards. When he is in form, he carries the team with him. Now  his high scores are not that frequent, and his centuries have dried up. He still has  a good batting average, but it has come down.' During the WTC, it has been in the low 40s. The other batsmen have to rally around and ensure that the the team gets a score which the bowlers can defend. Hopefully by September Kohli will become the first Indian captain to win a  test series in both Australia and England. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Kalam

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was born on 15th October 1931. Today is his 89th birth anniversary. He served as president of India from 2002 to 2007. He was one of India's most outstanding scientists, being trained in physics and aerospace engineering. Kalam started his career by designing a small helicopter for the Indian Army. Kalam worked in the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) where he was the project director of India’s first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully deployed the Rohini satellite in near earth’s orbit in July 1980. He was also an administrator at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Kalam was intimately involved in India's civilian space programme and military missile development efforts. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. Kalam was an avid author, and has written many books, such as Wings of Fire, Ignited M...
Read more

Plassey and the Indian banker:

Image
JAGAT SETH The battle of Plassey was fought on 23 rd June 1757. It is one of the most significant battles in Indian history, as it led to the eclipse of Muslim power in India and the establishment of the British Empire in the subcontinent. One of the most famous Indian bankers of all time is Jagat Seth, who conspired against Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, in the Battle of Plassey. That gave the East India Company its first decisive victory in India and eventually helped establish its rule over the entire subcontinent. Various travellers of that time wrote about Jagat Seth's enormous wealth (one traveller described him as "the greatest banker in the known world"). The name Jagat Seth itself means banker to the world. The house of Jagat Seth came to achieve a reputation akin to that of the Rothschilds. According to some sources, the British economy in the 1720s was less than Jagat Seth’s' wealth. He had assets worth approximately 1000 billion pounds or more...
Read more

The Martians of Budapest

Image
Isaac Asimov once said, "There is a rumor in America that there are two intelligent races on earth: Humans and Hungarians”. “The Martians of Budapest”, sometimes simply “The Martians” is a colloquial term used to describe a group of prominent Hungarian physicists and mathematicians who emigrated to the United States following the Great Purge of 1933. The term refers to — what appeared, from the perspective of Americans —to be a group of men with superhuman intellects, arriving from an obscure country and  speaking an incomprehensible foreign language.   Scientists typically thought to belong to the group include refugees from the University of Göttingen, early associates of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and members of The Manhattan Project, including: John von Neumann, Paul Erdős, Eugene Wigner, Leó Szilárd, Edward Teller,  Theodore von Kármán, Paul Halmos, George Polya, John Kemeny and John Hersányi. John von Neumann (1903–1957):  The polymath genius g...
Read more