Cashing on Individual Brilliance!

Well here we go again. Another defeat and another critical analysis of the Indian cricket team. Today's defeat in the first NatWest Challnege ODI was, like many others, was very disappointing. I think what’s more disheartening is the way an Indian team perishes, without guts, without any fight. But we have got used to it, haven’t we.

I woke up early morning to check up the scores and read "Harmison destroys India". It was just very disappointing to read the score board. No one managing to give a fight except Kaif, who apparently gives his little contribution every once in 10-15 matches. Don’t want to pick on Kaif, he did well in this match, he's an excellent fielder, who probably does save you 10-15 runs on the field, but the fact is he’s been picked as a batsmen and its high time he started contributing more consistently. The debate surrounding the seventh batsmen is that "the seventh batsman does make a difference". So far Kaif is not, so this debate is not going away anytime soon.

The same goes for his pal, Yuvraj. He looked completely at sea against spinners in the slow and low Sri Lankan wickets. He just seems to have selected number of shots against the spinners, one of them being the sweep. I think the bowlers have or will figure that out quickly and cramp him for space, thus depriving him of the sweep as well. I haven’t seen him trying anything different, like stepping out to the spinners, but then lately how many Indian batsmen do you see doing that. Apart from that, he hasn’t done too well in the consistency department as well.

Now I can pick some more batsmen here for there lack of steady performances. The most wristy batsmen in the Indian team also needs to work on this problem. Ever so often we see Laxman getting to those 20s, 30s and giving his wicket away. He plays at a very important number 3 slot and he definitely needs to do better than that. He's got everything going for him, good stroke maker, good player of spin and coming at No 3, he’s got all the time in the world to place his innings.

Our captain is not doing too well in the consistency department as well. It’s high time, he pulls up his socks. Some people have even pointed out, that he had been riding high on the performance of his team mates, than his own. His inconsistent form will just add fuel to this theory.

The utter lack of consistency is definitely hurting the Indian fans and I am sure the cricketers themselves too. All we see is these little flashes of brilliance, sometimes as a collective team and sometimes just as individuals. Unfortunately I must say that it is this "Individual brilliance" that has hurt the Indian team to some extent. We have always had stars in the past few years - we talked about the 3 pillars, but how many matches, series did "Team India" win. Some, but not many to count.

The way cricket is run in India, by the media and the corporations (and us fans too), everyone wants to cash on to this "Individual brilliance".