Team India should have tried for 2-0

It was only recently that the head of the Punjab Cricket Association, and also one of the top official of the ICC, Mr. I.S.Bindra, did what not too many BCCI officials would have ever done. He accepted that the paucity of crowds for the Mohali test match against Australia, was partly due to the fact that for long, the Indian crowds had been ‘short-changed’. In short, he accepted, the oft-abused phrase, moral responsibility, for the same, something that was rare coming from a BCCI personnel. The other cause had been rather obvious, with the kind of imagination-capturing exercise that the IPL had performed, test matches was to the Indians, as it was some years back to the Americans. A boring game played by 22 fools, and watched by 22000 bigger fools; or so they would have probably thought.

Either ways, concerns have been raised in every nook and corner of the cricketing world that allowing a baby grow at the expense of its daddy dying is something that can very well be eschewed. Test cricket needed better crowds, and hence a much better advertisement. Thankfully, the English resumed their Indian tour after a much-discussed pre-tour pull out threat, and then Chennai happened. Discarded as no-hopers, the English, led by Kevin Pietersen, showed as much heart on the field as they had exhibited in returning back, and were a cat’s whisker away from harbouring hopes of upsetting India. Instead, Team India played a brand of cricket that so well epitomises the captain; positive, aggressive and totally upbeat, despite being in a situation that not too many would fancied them to win from.

India chased down 387 on the final day to go up 1-0. A few days later, test cricket had been further injected with a dose of heightened excitement, enough to match the likes of T20 cricket, when the touring South African team pulled cotton over the Aussie side by chasing down 414 runs on the final day of their first test at WACA. The purists were a happy bunch, and one would have thought that test cricket was alive and kicking.

Not for too long.

The second encounter between the two teams at Mohali messed up a lot of anticipation, and that can partially be attributed to some really strange tactics that M.S. Dhoni and his think-tank applied on the last two days of the match. Leading by a handsome total of more than a hundred and fifty runs, Dhoni’s men preferred to pat down deliveries and defend wholeheartedly, when they ought to have thrown caution to the wind and tried to secure a win instead.

Probably, the pitch had almost nothing in it for the spin bowlers, and Dhoni would have been looking at his first triumph in a test series as a full-time captain. He did admit in as many words, that the Indians wanted to be doubly sure about pocketing the series, as against doling the opponents a sniff of a chance.

Yet, it definitely did not augur too well for someone who would probably aspire to topple the Aussies and want to stay perched at the top. This is one of the brands of cricket that Dhoni could very well avoid. Needless to say, it took the sheen off the series win.