In Retrospect - Imperfect Chemistry !

The title of the post seemed a little odd but cudnt help it as it perfectly describes what has been happening with Indian Cricket in the recent past.

From being once a die-hard fan to a stage where I hardly catch up with any live action where our national team is involved speaks volumes of my
patience running out and can only be justified by one reason :

"This Team is Too Gud To Perform"

And add to that the eccentric nature and lack of consistency that is on display...
It is a star-studded team no doubt ...and yet fails to deliver in crunch situations
when it matters most against world class oppositions like Australia...Why ??
The Reason : When the batting delivers the bowling lets you down and vice-versa.You can get away with that at this point of time maybe with teams like West Indies but with better teams you got to be gud in both departments...

People might have got carried away (I too was to an extent) with the initial success of the team under Greg Chappel and Rahul Dravid but then again
we do forget that most of those successes came against Pakistan and SriLanka...Both these teams can beat the best team in the World on their day
and yet be ordinary on other occasions... "eccentric".

I have no objections to the rotation policy followed by Chappel since I believe all selected in the squad are gud enough to perform and the team should
be flexible (epitomized by World Champions Australia) but whoever is in the team should be able to perform to his potential... not on his day but on any given day...

Unless they have confidence and belief in themselves to perform under pressure and against better oppositions when it matters I find it difficult
as to how they are going to be World-Beaters one day...

We have a tendency to pray for them to come gud in important matches no matter who the opposition is ...Zimbabwe or Australia...doesnt matter
because you can expect anything from this team...

I do hope for a day when we wouldnt have to pray for them but have faith in their abilities and know that atleast 8/10 times they would deliver.
Until that time dont have much high expectations...

And ya I had expected Chappel to deliver by now. Apart from the controversies that he has been unnecessarily caught up in (expected in Indian Cricket
and Politics) he should have made them perform consistently. Agreed that he has worked on building a great team spirit (part of the Ganguly legacy) ,
removing weaknesses and improving technique of certain players but the greatest weakness of this team is lack of confidence...

"They dont believe in themselves"

The day they start doing that we wouldnt require a Greg Chappel to win matches for us...

I do feel sorry for Sachin as I do believe that this would be his last World Cup and the only thing missing in his glittering career is to be part of a World Cup winning team...but then again cant put all the blame on him because he has over the years seen the side through single handedly not on one but on several occasions...it is a different story that the team sometimes never manages to capitalize on his contribution to the cause...

Looking forward to the Champions Trophy and World Cup ...

Note : Lot of criticism expected for this post...Do write in your comments...Bring it On !!