Team India's tryst with destiny

Team India has embarked on another tour down under with lots of hopes to win the series. The hopes are always hopes. I am a big cricket fan and I love it even more when I see players of my own soil perform tremendously well abroad. In reality, people must understand that India has Mount Everest to cross in the next 2 months. It is simply not going to be easy as many of them predict, India to win this series.
I will reserve my comments for the final result right now.

Test matches are vividly different from the One day format and more so from the T20 format. If a team can beat Australia quite consistently, then it could be in the T20 format. The game is decided by one brilliant innings or one nerve-wracking spell of bowling. Even one mistake by Australia in a crunch moment can make them lose a game in T20. But, that is not the same case with Test matches. Test matches are a real test of a cricketer.

India’s tour down under has 4 test matches lined up this season. 4 test matches mean, effectively 20 days of full cricket. If mental and physical skills of a visiting team are tested for so long, you can expect a “truly” strong team without any kind of weakness anywhere to challenge the Australians in their own soil. I reiterate, a “truly” strong team without any kind of weakness anywhere can challenge the Australians. You still cannot declare such a team to win down under.

As far as India is concerned, they need to dominate Australia in more than 35-40 sessions in the test series. Australia is not a team to let India off the hook to dominate in such a huge number of sessions. With Indian bowling looking so inexperienced, it would be better if we play in bowler-friendly conditions rather than a batting paradise. Batting paradise means Indian bowlers are very close to their demise. India, off late have performed exceedingly well in bowler-friendly conditions because, Indian bowlers had the skills to exploit anything in the wicket. England and South Africa have been good examples for it. Even Zaheer bowled brilliantly @ Brisbane during India’s last visit. If the pitch is dry and flat, Australians will score 500+ surely. If we say that Indian batting line up is in superb touch, so is Australian batting line up. They have scored more than 500 runs in an innings 6 times in the last 7 tests. How is this for some team batting record???? :) :) :)

Effectively, Aussies make sure they bat only once in the test matches and their bowlers claim 20 wickets. When a bowling line up with such variety like Srilanka’s was tortured last month, don’t expect to many freebies from the Australians. Malinga, Vaas, Fernando, Maharoof and Muralitharan together couldn’t pick up 10 wickets in an innings against Australia. I fear, India’s conditions if they play in a supposedly dry batting friendly pitches this season. Australia will demolish India on the first 2 days of the test itself.

Having said that, India has vastly improved and they have the fire power to cause an upset especially with Sreesanth’s comeback possibly @ WACA!!!

So for all who have been crying aloud that India can win this series.... think again. It is very easy to post these lines in a few minutes. As I said, India need to be consistent throughout the 20 days of cricket which I feel will be really tough if not impossible.

Team India's tryst with destiny is in their hands now.