Lessons for Indian Cricket from Aussies

Australians have dominated the world cricket for more than a decade in all the formats of the game. It has produced quality players year after year and has nurtured them and then pushed others out cos there was a lot of talent waiting outside to take up the challenge. There have been times when we have felt that even the second or third team of Aussies could beat any other top team in the world; such was their domination in the world of cricket. They kept adding new talent to their squad as and when they felt someone had got old and had to give space to a new talent who has been waiting for years, just cos everyone was in form most of the times. So the old had to make way for the new, as they were assured that even the new ones will do exceedingly well. And as a process their top players retired one after the other at the peak of their forms, Steve Waugh retired in 2004 with an 88 against India, when he in no way looked like he was old or not fit, he just made way for new talent. This process continued in the latter years as well and they kept losing top cricketers due to age and pressure to give a chance to youngsters, which worked quite well for a long time with introduction of players like Darren Lehman, Simon Katich, Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Shaun Tait, Doug Bollinger, Cameron White, Mitchell Johnson and many more such high quality talent.

But today we are in a situation where the Aussies have lost their domination over world cricket; they have been losing, at times miserably and at other times after fighting out hard against different teams. One could never imagine that Aussies could rank as low as 5 in the test rankings, but that’s the fact at the moment, it has slipped down from being the top team to a mediocre one. If one observes keenly most of this has come as a result of the retirement of 5 top players one after the other in a span of 2 years, these 5 are the top players in their own specific role during their time of play – Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Mathew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Justin Langer. These 5 have been match winners of Australia for more than a decade in some form of the game or other, except for Ricky Ponting who is still playing; these 5 have been the crucial factors of taking the game to Australia’s favor. Be it the dominance of Hayden and Langer in the batting department or the sheer excellence in the mind boggling spells of Glenn McGrath, they have all been the force behind the domination of Australia in world cricket and as a result of their retirement, Australian cricket has seen new lows in their form, that was never imaginable at least for a kid like me who grew up watching cricket in the era of these maestros and every time I watched a match Australia was taking part in, I knew the result more often than not, such was the magic of the team then. But now it seems like history, it’s hard to imagine Australia getting back to where it belonged, no matter it has the talent, but these talented stars lack the magic that the super 5 had along with Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting (at different times).

Indian cricket is having a magical time at the moment, with it being the top test team for quite some time now and it has also shown good form in one day cricket as well as 20-20 in the recent times. Be it due to the Dhoni factor or due to sheer presence of the best batting line up in the world. We’ve always known that India is a major power in world cricket only due to its batting, our bowling has never been impressive for more than a series max at different times and conditions, specially as we play almost different set of pacers in every alternative series, our bowlers either being out of form half of the time or being injured for the rest. The matter that concerns me about Indian cricket at this moment specifically in the context of the Australian downfall is the fact that the pillars of Indian batting line up are all going to retire post the 2011 world cup that might mean the start of downfall of Indian cricket in different forms of the game. Sachin, Rahul, Laxman, Shewag might all retire in the next 2 years for sure, with their retirement Indian batting line up looks gloomy specially as we are talking about the top 5 spots in the batting line up. None of the current youngsters in the Indian squad have shown as much talent and courage to fill the shoes of these maestros.

Gautam Gambhir was in the best form of his life last year but has been a sheer disappointment this year and the less we talk about Yuvraj Singh the better it would be for him, he has just shown attitude and no character on the cricketing field and outside lately and that has led to him being dropped from the test squad already. Suresh Raina is an excellent talent, he might fill in the gap a bit but how far he will be able to do this is still to be seen. Virat Kohli has played well at times and has come to the rescue of the team a few times, but again once in a while knocks are not sufficient to fill the shoes of the fab 4. Dhoni himself has been showing no performance in terms of his batting for quite some time, as a captain he might be doing decently, but if he doesn’t perform as a batsman how far he will be able to remain a motivated captain is a big question. There are a lot of other brilliant names (Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Murali Vijay) that are in and out of the squad at different times, so its not quite reassuring that they would fill the void that would be created as a result of the retirement of the fab 4. So the batting line looks really gloomy, but can the bowling department go a notch up to fill the imbalance in the batting department? Like I said earlier, bowling is always a concern in itself, how can we expect it to compensate for the lackluster batting?! Indian Cricket should take a lesson from Australia’s recent history and do something constructive about it at the earliest else it would just follow the pattern we have observed with the Aussies.

P.S – Let’s not forget Aussies are still the top ODI team, but do you think they’ll be able to hold on to that for long? Lets wait for the outcome of the on going India – Australia series to get some idea. And obviously we have the world cup to look forward to, while teams like Bangladesh and Kenya are doing exceedingly well but teams like Pakistan, West Indies and Newzeland have their own problems in different departments.

Today’s Favorite Line – If being apathetic is wrong, then I don’t care

Today’s Favorite Song – Waka Waka (Shakira)