A Defeat Before Losing

Well..at last, the inevitable happens.India beats Australia an the second test at Mohali by 320 runs. Thanks to some awesome batting display from the blades of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sourav Ganguly and others. Also some splendid bowling from the likes of Ishanth Sharma who has been the favorite of Ricky Ponting and Zaheer Khan.Not to forget spin duo of Amit Mishra and Harbhajan Singh.At the end of the day,thank you team India for putting up a splendid all round performance.Each and every part of the game had dominance over the Australian counterparts.This was however expected.But, was the match against Australia or Zimbabwe?

I had to think twice before looking at the scorecard of the Australian second innings, when the scoreboard read 58/5 in the second innings of the Australian batting and towards the end of the fourth day.All the most fascinating was the way the Australian openers started their batting in the second innings.I wish someone like Glenn McGrath would have put up a better and more responsible show,no matter what the asking rate was.I wish one has to take a look at the way the Australian openers started their second innings.The slog shot of Matthew Hayden for Zaheer Khan in the first ball of the innings was just stupid.

A run rate of above 9.0 until the first wicket fell at a score of 50?Were they playing test cricket or a T20 match or were they batting at the fag end of the 50 over match? Well.. this was not something that has been expected for the Australian team given their dominance in all forms of the game.With a win out of question,atleast they could have put up a tough fight making India earn each and every wicket for their victory.I feel one has to remind Australia about the way test cricket has to be played. Though the Australian team lost the Ashes in 2005, the performance they put up was far above par compared to the English.It was only destiny that had different plans which favoured the England team.

It was just frustrating to see the Australian team succumb so easily to the pressure created by team India.None of us thought that this bad would be the game plan of the Aussies whatsoever.There was absolutely no attempt to save their face on the Australian side.True that they were underdogs,but,atleast had they made use of their talent to some extent,the match would have been worth the wait.But,not anymore. Even in the first test,the Australian side never aimed to pull out a victory from the Indians,for they batted for almost two days before putting up a total of 490, and then allowing Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan to take the control.

If at all the spirit of an India-Australia test has to be saved,its inevitable for both the teams to put up a stiff fight.Else,the test would be no different from a Bangladesh -India test.