Blogs Indian Test Team: Terrible Starters!!
July 25th, 2008 by prashantI might be wrong but it seems as if the Indian Cricket team always starts a new series (home or abroad) very poorly and then tries to catch and make amends. Barring a much superlative batting effort or even more importantly, some washed-out day (s), India would lose the first test against Sri Lanka. If you look at India’s 2007-2008 away Test series against England & Australia and home series against South Africa, you can see that the Indian team started badly and did better as these series progressed.
In the England Series, but for the bad weather and some rear-guard action by Dhoni, India would have lost their first test at Lords. They managed to win the series 1-0 in the end. Even in Australia they lost the first Test at MCG, could have pulled off a win or at least a draw at SCG and ended up beating the Aussies at Perth. Even against SA at home after a drawn first test, India lost the second test and pulled off a win in the third to level the series.
Why is that the case? Does the team has a lot of inertia or need a lot of time to acclimatize? In any case it needs to pull-up its socks and demonstrate some guts and fighting spirit if it wants to survive this very precarious situation in the first test against SL.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:10 am
See I told you. Indian team getting better as the series moves along. Wonderful performance by the Indians in winning the Galle test and leveling the series….
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Just listening to Laxman’s interview on the 4th. He said that it is unfortunate but the Indian team have been generally losing the first test in a test match series and then getting better as things progress.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Good point. Though I wonder why is that the case? Is it that the players need more time to acclimatise? Do they need more practise on foreign pitches? I hope BCCI would look into the matter and do something about it. Anyway, this series is done as Indians lost the 3rd test.