Indian showing a major disappointment

Even after taking into account the fact that expectations were not very high, it must be said that the showing - or should one say the non performance - of the Indian team at Dhaka came as a major disappointment.

Yes, it was known that the bowling was woefully weak and inexperienced. And true, what with the match fixing scandal having engulfed some of the players in the team, they could not have been in a proper frame of mind to perform even upto their potential. But even after considering all this, there is little doubt that the Indians fell below expectations. After all, the Pakistan and Sri Lankan teams too had weaknesses. And it must not be forgotten that Pakistan too figures very prominently in the match fixing scam. But these countries never allowed these shortcomings to disturb their performances. Mentally, they remained very strong.

Losing by 71 runs to Sri Lanka and then by 44 runs to Pakistan was the Indians' woeful record. Even against Bangladesh, the bowling was seen in poor light. The Indians conceded 249 runs to a side which a few days later went down to Pakistan by the record one day defeat margin of 233 runs. One thought that the Indian batting was strong enough to over ride any weakness in the bowling. But that was obviously a mistaken impression.

Of course it could be said that the alarm bells started ringing the moment the team was selected. It was certainly not the best team that could have been picked. A bowling line up that has Ajit Agargar as the spearhead and continues with Kumaran and debutant Amit Bhandari would have any opposition batting line up licking their lips in anticipation. Sunil Joshi and Nikhil Chopra do not have an impressive one day record and so even in the spin department India were ill equipped.

As so often in the past, one looked up at our traditional strong batting line up to cover up the deficiances in the bowling. But Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid obviously found it difficult to make the transition from English conditions to the hot weather of the sub continent. The additional pressure on Sachin Tendulkar told on his batting. Md Azharuddin is in the twilight of his career. And Jadeja too seemed jaded despite his 93 against Pakistan, a distinctly lucky innings. The silver lining was provided by new boy Hemang Badani who displayed his class and skill in his 35 in the opening match. One only hopes he is persevered with for he is obviously a long term prospect.

It is about time the Indian team management stop this foolhardy experiment of Dravid as wicketkeeper. They persisted with this risky policy despite having a specialist wicketkeeper in Mongia who had flown in to replace the injured Saba Karim. An international cricket team should have a specialist stumper. This elementary fact is astonishingly lost on our team management. By continuing with Dravid behind the stumps, one is not only risking the injury factor to one of our premier batsmen but also admitting that it is a cover up policy for inherent weaknesses and lack of balance in the side.

There are no international competitions for the Indian team for some time and this lull could not have come at a better time. It is time to rebuild the side and since this process takes time, it is better to start right now in real earnest. For a start, let us invest in the lads who won the under-19 World Cup for us in January this year. Remember them? This is the way Pakistan has unearthed talent like Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq and Imran Nazir. We too have young gifted players. The time has come to shed our traditional approach, take bold steps and encourage them.