Blogs Down but not Out
February 27th, 2009 by writemanSo we have lost the second T20 too. The team is down. But i am on a high because my match analyses are getting the approvals from the great minds in cricket. Immediately after the first match i had written that trying to hit too many big hits did us in. The same thing was said by Dhoni and many cricket experts later. Did i say something very insightful or something that was just plain obvious about the first match? Anyways, please allow me to stay within the fools’s paradise to think that my analyses are too good, in depth, and insightful (even if they are not) as long as they are accurate.
If you say that my first match analysis was not deep but accurate then i sincerely welcome that. There is a HUGE positive in that. This means our team is making obvious mistakes which doesn’t require a cricket pundit to detect. Which in turn means that we can easily correct the mistakes and win.
We made mistakes again in the second match. Our batsmen never looked comfortable in the match. We tried to play better and didn’t try for the big hits totally. Well that was a mistake. In a T20 match we should try to go for the big hits but must space them. Just when we were about to getting settled the New Zealand bowlers unsettled us. Awkward and hurried shots bereft of any confidence, indecisiveness, and the signs of pressure characterized our batting. Bowling was a shade better than the first match. Ishant Sharma was not so reckless and Pathan bowled sensibly this time. Still we lost the match. Though the scores were tied with one ball left to end the match, we were never close to the New Zealand performance. They dominated the proceedings right from the word go. Or more appropriately we let them dominate the proceedings.
Two straight defeats. But hey, it is no big deal. The fact that Yuvraj scored a fifty this time proves that when two or three of our batsmen will hit the big scores New Zealand will be put to the most grueling tests. You saw a glimpse of that when Pathan took two quick wickets and then when NZ needed 24 runs from two overs. The tension was quite palpable in the NZ benches. Butler was chewing his nail. Unfortunately, the scores were not big enough. In both the T20 matches only one batsman clicked each time. In the first one Raina and the second one it was Yuvraj. What makes you think that Raina, Gambhir, and Yuvi will not click in a single match? Why cannot Sehwag, Gambhir, and Jadeja not take the responsibility in the next match? The story will be different when 2/3 of our top batsmen score the big runs and others chip in with nifty contributions. And this is going to happen soon. Butler will chew off his fingers. Just watch out.
