The test series is almost coming to an end. The viewership has evaporated on the TV channels. With one test to play and the captain Dhoni out on the ICC ban , the average Indian is cursing the team in toto. In England , it was a spate of injuries which could be converted as convenient excuses but in this tour , it has been proved that the Indian batting has its frailities.
The bowlers have not been great either but India have always won when the runs are on the board and it would always be greater than 400 for a test win surely. The Indian batting has never looked lasting beyond 60 odd overs , blame it on the T20 which all the players play or the one day champions which they are. So scoring 300 + has been a distant dream and the only time they were past 300 was in an inconsequential 4th innings where they were chasing a huge mountain of runs. Starts have never been good , middle order has not fired and the old and experienced are looking slow and tardy even while batting. Youngsters are still warming the benches and the only change India has made, Vinay Kumar has not worked at all.
As Gambhir said , the whole Indian team should take responsibility and it would be unfair to blame any one of them. But the retirement decisions have to be taken and the sooner the better. It would definitely have been good had Tendulkar got the 100th ton against West Indies at Mumbai and released the pressure on himself. India had come a long way from the dependence on SRT and rewinding the wheel to precisely where it started would be foolish.
Where do we go from here, to the one day internationals and the T20 , the whole series would be forgotten. Further down , Indian team is scheduled to play a year of test cricket in India and where the Yuvraj's and Rainas will score tons of runs. Time has come to plan ahead, have a replacement for Dravid ready in Pujara, form the nucleus of 20 year olds who can make the Indian test team what it was and take it to the top in 3 years flat. Time for the BCCI to make sporting pitches and some fast ones and not the Ranji Trophy final one at Chennai where Saxenas would score and it would count for zilch at the end. It is indeed surprising that the Chennai pitch which had considerable bounce and carry has been reduced to this state.
The avid cricket fan in me would not go away but it would be better to follow a winning team rather than a team which doesnt last a day in batting and loses matches in three days.
