Indian spinners bowled poorly

Full marks to Australia for outplaying India in conditions favouring the home team. The ball was turning and bouncing and 248 certainly appeared a winning score.

Mark Waugh batted superbly, maintained his composure all through, was never desperate in his methods, and took maximum advantage off the loose balls. A match-winning century it certainly was.

Matthew Hayden's rich vein of form continued and the openers seized the initiative from India with their positive approach. The home team, in fact, never got a chance to sneak into the game.

In the same breath, it must be said that the Indian spinners bowled poorly on a conducive pitch, not operating to the right line and sent down too many short balls.

They waited for things to happen instead of forcing the batsmen to commit mistakes. The spinners were disappointing to say the least.

Earlier in the day, Hemang Badani was superb. This young man has class, which could be seen in the graceful manner in which he accumulated the runs. Without taking undue risks, Hemang was scoring at run-a-ball, the hallmark of a quality bat.

During the knock, Hemang also revealed that he had the temperament for `international' cricket.

The left-hander kept his cool under pressure, stroked the ball beautifully, and piloted India to a combative score with his hundred.

Apart from the bowling of the spinners, India needs to improve in two more aspects. 1: Running between the wickets. The calling has been awful and some of the dismissals were `silly', especially at the international level. 2: The standard of fielding can also be better. Especially, ground fielding that was shoddy for most part.

Finally to the area of wicket-keeping. Vijay Dahiya batted well in Bangalore, but needs to realise that he has to keep wickets properly too - he was below par with the gloves in the second one-dayer. One is not saying Dahiya should be dumped, only suggesting there is plenty of scope for improvement in the key aspect of his game.

Ideally, a wicket-keeper batsman should be like Syed Kirmani, a brilliant 'keeper, who could also wield the willow more than usefully down the order. At any level of the game, in any form, 'keepers have to be `specialists' first.

By K.SRIKKANTH

www.krishsrikkanth.com

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Lehmann was 'smart': Wright
Next     : Statistical highlights of second one-dayer