India v Bangladesh May 10….. depleted victory…..

An Indian team selected by BCCI to please all constituencies, beat Bangladesh by 5 wickets, after playing 3 specialist fast bowlers is conditions which were always going to be spin friendly, with the two wicketkeepers selected in the eleven playing pivotal innings, one of them one one leg after having kept for 47 overs in the sapping heat. If that can some how be rationalized by saying “but they won in the end” and that they showed “determination and steel not evident in the world cup”, then such a rationalization would ignore the fact that every single one of India’ weaknesses was on display yesterday, and the win was not so much a case of India making fewer mistakes, but of Bangladesh making more mistakes and having limited firepower. Lets start at the beginning though.

Zaheer Khan started gingerly and inspite of Sreesanth bowling well, it seemed as though the rub of the green would continue to go Bangladesh’s way with catches flying between the wicketkeeper and first slip and Tamim Iqbal playing in effect an action replay of his Queens Park Oval innings at Mirpur. By my count, 1 short pitched delivery was attempted by Zaheer against the hard charging Tamin – that one went for 5 wides because it bounced too much. Zaheer was not at his best and kept drifting on the pads every now and then. The lap scoops which all the Bangladesh batsmen seem to execute proficiently seem to unsettle Zaheer. After that, Dravid seemed to play this match with one hand tied behind his back. The best spin bowling talent he could call on was Ramesh Powar, Dinesh Mongia and Virendra Sehwag! This on a turning track. The specialist spin bowling he had in the touring squad included Piyush Chawla!

It is with this background that this result ought to be viewed. It was an important result, because the “win, or else….. ” crowd with their sting operations and punitive diktats would have found occasion to take their derisive crescendo to a new level had the run chase been unsuccessful.

A word about Dhoni – he has now made 2000 runs at 46 – with 15 50+ scores in 62 innings (17 out of 62 innings have been unbeaten), the best beginning ever by any Indian ODI player – and he has been a specialist wicketkeeper all this while. In the process he has played some astonishing innings. He is a phenomenal talent, and more crucially, a phenomenal performer – one of the finest in the world. His method may work better in certain conditions than it does in other – but it might be useful to point out that he has out performed every other Indian batsman – Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag…. only Yuvraj sing with 2045 runs in 59 games at 45.5 comes close.

Dinesh Karthik delivered crucial runs as well. It is clear that he too like Dhoni is a special player. After a wicketkeeper drought between Mongia and Dinesh Karthik, India now have two candidates for the position who would walk into most Test sides in the World (Australia, SL and SA excepted of course).

The specialist batting seems to have learnt nothing. Gambhir, every time he gets selected promises much but his problem of falling over and planting his front foot too far across his stumps seems to persist. Sehwag was worse if anything. The run chase was well planned and India sought to make the most of the new ball and the power plays with the wicket holding up. One of the corollaries of the “openers should go after the new ball” theory is that the openers, once set, ought to stay in, because coming in against the older ball on a slow wicket is difficult given the prospect of a 5+ required run rate. Yet, Virendra Sehwag, with 171 ODI’ s under his belt, and only the captains good word on his side perished trying to manufacture a 5th boundary in an over which had already yielded 16. The man seems to have a death wish.

I can assure you though – the next time he makes one of his whirlwind 180’s – possibly in the Bangladesh Tests, possibly in England, everyone will applaud his style play. It gives you a glimpse as to how analysis is invariably backwards (and inherently dishonest). A victory means that only favorable evidence and events will be cherry picked and mentioned, while a defeat means that only unfavorable evidence and events will be cherry picked and mentioned. Sehwag walks a thin line between recklessness and outrageous confidence – but that line sadly is drawn by journalists. Even if his definition of an acceptable risk may be different from that of an average batsman, it must surely be required that when he seems to take his eye off the team goal, he ought to be brought to book. The difference between the ODI Sehwag and the Test Match Sehwag, is that the Test Match Sehwag is well within his comfort zone, while the ODI Sehwag has no rhythm to his play – beyond a certain point he seems to want to smash everything – that has never worked – even with Viv Richards or Ricky Ponting or Adam Gilchrist. There is a method to Sehwag’s Test Match play. There is apparently none that does not amount to harakiri in his ODI play.

All in all, this game revealed the gulf between the two sides – an India squad selected punitively which played terrible cricket for 80 out of 94 overs, and a Bangladesh squad missing its strike bowler which played to its potential with the bat, but had a mixed day in the field. Results like this can often kickstart the build up of momentum for a side. India needed a break. And they got it when Abdur Razzak fumbled a return from square leg with Dinesh Karthik short by about three bat lengths.

May be India will give a better account of themselves in the coming games. But today, they got out of jail.