Poor Indian Batting Performance Continues

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It is said that when calamities strike, they strike from all directions. Indian team, trapped deep inside tornado, must have realized by now that this is the darkest hour of their cricketing life. If they have not realized, well, God help them! Perth debacle takes the tally to the straight 7th Test Match loss for India away from home. While the only match they won at home was against very weak West Indies side. And in that series too, India could have easily lost the last game, thanks to R Ashwin for the last over sensible batting, which saved the Test and series!

Batting: The real culprit

Last 7 Away Test Matches Batting 'non'- Performance

India vs Australia Boxing Day test match

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When India and Australia meet down under, one can rest assured that it's gonna be mouth-watering cricket. The boxing day test match between India and Australia was a perfect showpiece of  how interesting test matches can get. The balance of pendulum kept swinging in the direction of both teams - almost every day. On first day, both teams looked balanced, on second day, India looked on top with firm grip on match. At the stumps of very next day, again Australia had slight edge with respectable lead but India also in well within game. On stumps of 3rd day, Indian media almost declared that Indian team will give a good news on 4th day. But on contrary, 4th day ended with result in favor of Australia. The series which has been named as 'Agneepath' series (road filled with fire) in sensational promotional videos, is indeed Agneepath for both the teams.

Indian team has now lost 5th consecutive abroad test match. Has failed to cross 300 runs mark in last 9 innings. Though there were some brilliant individual performances, big guns have failed to perform when it mattered the most. And, Sachin again 'failed' to fulfill dreams of over a billion people by not scoring 100th 100.

Sometimes while appearing for exam, one feels that he is weak in certain area and when exam actually begins, he performs exceptionally well in that area and he fails to deliver in area where he was supposed to perform the best. The same thing happened with Indian team.

Cricket Rules - dimensions of ground

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Highest individual scores in ODIs

Above list of 13 highest top scorers in ODI format is quite interesting one. It has great batsmen, tremendous strike rates, involvement of test playing nations (well, almost). And now, gradually, shift your attention to the right most column-‘Ground’. What do you see? 9 out of 13 scores are in Indian subcontinent - 5 out of those 9 are in India itself! Now, what does that mean? What triggers batsmen so much that they love to score such big scores in Indian subcontinent?

Few reasons:-

• Subcontinent pitches are flat – batsman friendly
• No much movement either through seam or swing for fast bowlers
• List includes majority of players playing in known home conditions
• Batsmen are just too great – it’s obvious they scored these big scorers

All the above points can be arguably agreed upon. Thought, there is one more point which I want to discuss is size of ‘Grounds’. As you know, most of subcontinent grounds are smaller as compared to the grounds in England, South Africa. Grounds in Australia, I believe, are largest. Now this certainly brings one question in my mind. Why there is difference in dimensions of cricket grounds across the world? And what guideline has ICC/ MCC set for dimensions of cricket ground?

Virender Sehwag Double Century

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Ever since Sehwag stared opening the innings in ODI matches, we looked at him as potentially the only Indian to score double ton in ODI for India. He did it. But it wasn't as much a surprise for me that Sehwag did it, the only surprise was that he was the second Indian (and in World too) to do it! In a way this was a much expected record from him.

Though I was lucky enough to view 'the shot' that made Sehwag's score read 201*, I was not fortunate enough to see the entire innings. Hence followed the score on the internet. There were few instances when I did not look the score for 8- 12 minutes and suddenly, Sehwag had added 15- 20 runs to his account. Such was the pace and strike rate of his innings that it was just impossible to stop him.

Below is the interesting stats of the highest individual score in an ODI innings broken and held so far.

Player	Runs	Mins	Balls	4s	6s		Team	Opposition	Ground	Match Date	ODI #
JH Edrich	82	150	119	4	0		England	v Australia	Melbourne	5 Jan 1971	ODI # 1
DL Amiss	103	161	134	9	0		England	v Australia	Manchester	24 Aug 1972	ODI # 2
RC Fredericks	105	-	122	10	1		West Indies	v England	The Oval	7 Sep 1973	ODI # 9
D Lloyd	116*	-	159	8	1		England	v Pakistan	Nottingham	31 Aug 1974	ODI # 14
GM Turner	171*	190	201	16	2		New Zealand	v East Africa	Birmingham	7 Jun 1975	ODI # 20
N Kapil Dev	175*	-	138	16	6		India	v Zimbabwe	Tunbridge Wells	18 Jun 1983	ODI # 216
IVA Richards	189*	-	170	21	5		West Indies	v England	Manchester	31 May 1984	ODI # 264
Saeed Anwar	194	206	146	22	5		Pakistan	v India	Chennai	21 May 1997	ODI # 1209
CK Coventry	194*	191	156	16	7		Zimbabwe	v Bangladesh	Bulawayo	16 Aug 2009	ODI # 2873
SR Tendulkar	200*	226	147	25	3		India	v South Africa	Gwalior	24 Feb 2010	ODI # 2962
V Sehwag	219	-	149	25	7		India	v West Indies	Indore	8 Dec 2011	ODI # 3223

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The biggest threat to the record of Sehwag is from Sehwag, himself!

And The Empire India begins...

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Cometh the hour, cometh the Champion!

Mission Accomplished

Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was Team India. The process that was started around 10 years back, under Captaincy of Sourav Ganguly, has reached its peak under the Leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The process saw its lowest point at 2007 world cup when Team India thrashed out in league matches. Come 2011 and I can say with very much pride that INDIA IS WORLD CHAMPION after 28 years! The warriors of team India who Changed the game and made India proud:





MS Dhoni: Emperor of World

Leading from the front

Midas Singh Dhoni touches and converts in Gold- 24 carat. He is in true sense the greatest leader(!) India has ever produced. Picture this: 114 for 3, India need another 160 odd runs with 6 runs per over. MS Dhoni with poor run with bat throughout WC. And boy, he promotes himself up to carry on left- right batting combination against wild Malinga and unplayable Murali.

How many people would come at that situation when your team is under huge pressure to rebuild innings that too in Big World Cup Final, your own form is the worst in career and people are talking about your position in the side, opponents are high on confidence (and perhaps skills), 121 crore fans expecting you to Win from  bottom of their heart  and none another than Yuvraj the best player in the tournament is waiting in dressing room!
In fact, if Dhoni had not come, it would have been a safe game for Dhoni himself. But a real warrior Dhoni is, did it, not to prove anything to anyone but to prove himself. This was the occasion, this was the challenge, his team required him the most, but nobody expecting him to confront this situation as Yuvraj was the option available, but Dhoni had different plans, he decided to took all the responsibility on his shoulders and finished the mission with unbeaten 91, smashing winning six.. This event separates him from a good captain  to the greatest leader. Now, he has gone beyond captaincy. He is being a captain with great success in the past as he has won Twenty-20 World Cup, 1st Ranking in Test Cricket, IPL Championship, Champions League Trophy and remember he is yet to loose a series in Test cricket. But, I think this is not just a captaincy, he is a great borne leader and he built a team knowing strengths and weaknesses of his team and opponents. He took bold decisions through out the World cup too. Many a times he was criticized  for his experiments when few went wrong, but he is great person to admit his mistakes. In fact he learned from his mistakes every now and then. But the best thing is that he never frightened to commit a mistake. People call Dhoni is Lucky, I don't think so. Dhoni writes his own luck  and that is what he has done in last 4 years for India!
Dhoni- the Emperor in India Cricket.

Yuvraj Singh:

Yuvi gives Indian team the aggression- I say arrogance- that a World Champion team needs to carry with them. Not to show off, but to lift the spirit of their own team! And don't forget, arrogance is acceptable when you are MoM for 4 matches and Player of tournament in World Cup! It suits you only when you score 362 runs with a massive average of 90.50 and claim 15 wickets in World cup tournament!
This is Yuvraj for you, 'Yuvraj' of Empire India!

Youngistaan:

Dream come true!

The brilliance of Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohali, Suresh Raina, R Ashwin was shown whenever required. Who can forget Gambhir's 97 runs- chasing 275- in WC final- when Sehwag and Sachin got out within first 6 overs? Probably Gambhir has played greatest inning of his life.
Virat, to whom India looks as future captain is good batter, athletic fielder. And Suresh Raina- my favorite- is superb finisher the best fielder and partnership breaking bowler.
You can invest your hopes in Generation next of Indian Empire!




Zaheer Khan:

To build an empire, you should be the best in all departments. Exception is Indian bowling, which is faaaar away from tag of best bowling unit. But standing out tall is Zaheer. He claimed 21 wickets- sharing top wicket taker spot in WC with Shahid Afridi. He led the attack from front and produced match wining performances- produced crucial wickets just when needed. All other bowling is still a big concern- though empire is built!

And...

Sachin Tendulkar: