I am sick and tired of repeating myself but have little option in reiterating my statement about Messrs Kohli and Pujara being the corner stones or bulwarks in team India's success against a struggling English team in the test series that gets underway in Nottingham later today.........
Saddled with a largely under performing and half baked bowling attack headed by a dithering and profligate who still seems uncertain about his role in the side despite having represented the country in 55 odd test matches; the onus will certainly be on India's batsmen to put enough runs on the board every single time so that the bowlers can come to the party...........
And that is precisely why Messrs Kohli and Pujara will have to perform out of their skins in seemingly hostile and unfriendly conditions in order to give their team a fighting chance of salvaging a tattered reputation following their 4-0 drubbing when they visited English shores the last time around.........
One may do well to recall the fact that Kohli had a less than stellar home series against the visiting Englishmen in the 2012-13 season; the Englishmen repeatedly set fields abounding with close catching men on either side of the wicket and enticed Kohli into their well set trap by bowling juicy half volleys well wide off the stumps........
To his credit it must however be said that Virat Kohli did show the guts, gumption and wherewithal to better the Englishmen at their own game in the concluding test of the four match series in Nagpur and notched up a memorable century that ended up embellishing his growing reputation and credentials as one of the finest batsmen of this generation........
On the other hand Cheteshwar Pujara emerged as the finest Indian batsman during the same series and ended up with a whopping 438 runs at a phenomenal average of 87.60 and his sojourns at the crease included two centuries with one of them being a monumental and memorable double century at Mumbai's iconic Wankhede stadium..........
What makes their task even more difficult this time around is the fact that they will be confronted with alien conditions where the ball will disconcertingly swing and seam around depending on the over head/climatic conditions and also be confronted with a pace bowling attack that has it's tail up despite losing the recently concluded home series to the Sri Lankans by a 1-0 margin............
No, I have not forgotten or overlooked the presence of Messrs Dhawan/Gambhir (if Dhawan does not completely recover from the injury sustained during a warm up game), Vijay, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane, but then I am a staunch realist and cannot for the hell of me see any of these batsmen getting the better of marauding English pace bowling attack and notching up huge scores.........
As for captain Dhoni, the less said the better, the fact has been conclusively established that he is far more comfortable in the shorter forms of the game and struggles to come to terms with bowling attacks and conditions that cruelly expose his abject lack of footwork as well as the pronounced inability to deal with balls that swing or seam away at the last moment.......
And that is precisely why I conclude that Messrs Kohli, Pujara and their sparkling efforts at the crease are the keys to team India's success and if either or both these batsmen fail to get going and set the stands alight, we might well be confronted with the sorry and ignonimous spectacle of yet another 5-0 whitewash.............
Saddled with a largely under performing and half baked bowling attack headed by a dithering and profligate who still seems uncertain about his role in the side despite having represented the country in 55 odd test matches; the onus will certainly be on India's batsmen to put enough runs on the board every single time so that the bowlers can come to the party...........
And that is precisely why Messrs Kohli and Pujara will have to perform out of their skins in seemingly hostile and unfriendly conditions in order to give their team a fighting chance of salvaging a tattered reputation following their 4-0 drubbing when they visited English shores the last time around.........
One may do well to recall the fact that Kohli had a less than stellar home series against the visiting Englishmen in the 2012-13 season; the Englishmen repeatedly set fields abounding with close catching men on either side of the wicket and enticed Kohli into their well set trap by bowling juicy half volleys well wide off the stumps........
To his credit it must however be said that Virat Kohli did show the guts, gumption and wherewithal to better the Englishmen at their own game in the concluding test of the four match series in Nagpur and notched up a memorable century that ended up embellishing his growing reputation and credentials as one of the finest batsmen of this generation........
On the other hand Cheteshwar Pujara emerged as the finest Indian batsman during the same series and ended up with a whopping 438 runs at a phenomenal average of 87.60 and his sojourns at the crease included two centuries with one of them being a monumental and memorable double century at Mumbai's iconic Wankhede stadium..........
What makes their task even more difficult this time around is the fact that they will be confronted with alien conditions where the ball will disconcertingly swing and seam around depending on the over head/climatic conditions and also be confronted with a pace bowling attack that has it's tail up despite losing the recently concluded home series to the Sri Lankans by a 1-0 margin............
No, I have not forgotten or overlooked the presence of Messrs Dhawan/Gambhir (if Dhawan does not completely recover from the injury sustained during a warm up game), Vijay, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane, but then I am a staunch realist and cannot for the hell of me see any of these batsmen getting the better of marauding English pace bowling attack and notching up huge scores.........
As for captain Dhoni, the less said the better, the fact has been conclusively established that he is far more comfortable in the shorter forms of the game and struggles to come to terms with bowling attacks and conditions that cruelly expose his abject lack of footwork as well as the pronounced inability to deal with balls that swing or seam away at the last moment.......
And that is precisely why I conclude that Messrs Kohli, Pujara and their sparkling efforts at the crease are the keys to team India's success and if either or both these batsmen fail to get going and set the stands alight, we might well be confronted with the sorry and ignonimous spectacle of yet another 5-0 whitewash.............
No comments:
Post a Comment