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Play fire with fire
By:
kirti.rath
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Dec 19, 2007 12:20 PM
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In the last decade or so India vs Australia encounters have been a sheer delight for the lovers of cricket like me.The 1999-2000 tour of Australia taken up by India was nothing short of a full scale debacle
where they lost all 3 of their test matches(2 of them innings defeats).But still the world saw the emergence of two great cricketers Brett Lee and V.V.S Laxman.When the Aussies came visiting in 2001 they were on a record breaking 16 match winning spree and spurred by the confidence Steve Waugh (the then skipper) declared India as the all conquering Aussies’ "Final Frontier".That series turned out to be one of the best ever played in Test Cricket where India halted the Aussie juggernaut with a 2-1 victory courtesy superlative efforts from V.V.S Laxman(his 281 at Calcutta is widely regarded as the best by any Indian),Harbhajan Singh and others.When India toured Oz the next time in 2003-2004 they stunned the cricketing world by retaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy as the scoreline ended 1-1 although it was the closest ever that an Indian team came to winning a series there.In the last series held in India The Aussies set the record straight and finally conquered the Indian frontier with a 2-1 victory.
Thus it has been one heck of a rivalry on the field accentuated by some carrer best efforts by people like Laxman,Harbhajan,Lee,Haden,Langer,Ponting,Gillcrisht,Sachin,Dravid and others.Off the field also the war of words has never stopped with Ganguly at the helm of affairs for quite some time and the well known Aussie formula for "mental disintegration" (Steve Waugh’s term for sledging).The rivalry is now going to be renewed when the first test starts on Boxing day with the promise of a hard fought series of 4 test matches.In my opinion India is the no.2 test team (we all know who the number one is) and thought it is still easy to predict an Aussie win I have a lot of expectations from this team .
The 4 test matches are scheduled in Melbourne(true bounce all through),Sydney(historically spinner friendly),Adelaide(the most batsman friendly pitch in Australia) and Perth(fast bowler’s paradise).The teams are led by Kumble and Ponting,both battle hardened cricketers with oceans of experience of playing against each other as well.Though Kumble was made captain only recently and it will be his first tour as skipper,his performance in the Pakistan series was definitely impressive.About Ponting what can we say,only 3 losses under his captaincy speaks volumes.
What gives me a lot of hope for India is the return to form of Ganguly who I think has rectified a lot of mistakes in his batting and is now stroking the ball as sweetly as ever.Sachin,Laxman and Dravid have always performed great against the Aussies and there is no reason they shouldn’t repeat it this time especially as it is touted as their farewell series.That leaves us with Dhoni,Yuvraj,Jaffer and Sehwag.In my opinion as he has been picked (out of the blue though) Sehwag should open with Jaffer for the first test.The problem for the Indian team though will be to pick a team that stands a chance to win the tests with enough firepower(read bowlers).It remains to be seen if the Indians have the guts to take the field with 5 bowlers.Dhoni will be a key to India’s chances as well with his big hitting if he can intimidate the Aussies.India’s best chance will be if they can put pressure by building up a huge total as batting is clearly their strength although bowling isn’t all that bad with Kumble and Zaheer leading.R.P Singh will be very important to India’s chances as well with either Munaf/Ishant backing them up.Munaf was a bad choice and they should have taken Sreesanth in his place.
From the Aussies perspective also batting seems to be the strength with so many batsmen like Ponting,Hayden,Husse,Gillchrist who can alter the fortunes at any point of time.The bowling certainly has some chinks although the pace battery of Lee,Tait and Johnson is simply unstoppable but they lack a quality spinner and hence the variety in their attack.But I have to say with players of this calibre in their ranks they certainly start as favorites.There was talk in the recent past that with the retirements of Mcgrath and Warne they won’t remain the same potent force because it’s 20 wickets that win the team test matches.But whatever little evidence we have till now they don’t show any signs of being affected by their absence.
So the battle lines have been drawn and quotes have started coming from players of both sides about the opponent.I am sure the Aussie media would have identified their targets in the Indian contingent.I still remember what happend to Shoaib Akhtar when he toured there in 1999-2000 where he was so psyched up to cross that 100 miles barrier that in the process erred in line and length and was taken to the cleaners by the Aussie batsmen.I hope the Indians are matured enough not to fall prey to such hideous tactics.I am sure this team is bettr than the one that toured there last time and am really looking forward to the series where sadly we all have to wake up early in the mornings hopefully to some great Indain performances.Finally I have to say The heart says India and the mind says Australia but as we all know "Never mind the mind"
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Pros: |
great cricket
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Cons: |
waking up early
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