Few answers
PLENTY TO DO With the World Cup due to begin in two weeks, India are dogged by problems all around
PERTH: Hay Street, which leads to the WACA, wore a deserted look on a hot and stuffy Friday morning. The neutral game hadn’t evoked much interest among the locals. Inside, the India and England players warmed up ahead of a game they could not afford to lose.
Sixty eight days after they arrived in Australia, India stayed winless, as by evening they had endured another defeat.
Fourteen months ago, they set out on a journey of challenging assignments. For the third time over the last four overseas tours (South Africa 2013-14, New Zealand 2013-14 and Australia 2014-15), a tour had ended without a victory.
Even during the Test series loss here, there was hope, but that was lost after cracks appeared within the side — the Shikhar Dhawan-Virat Kohli spat and the mid-series retirement of captain MS Dhoni.
By the time the tri-series arrived, the team was deflated. A couple of players were injured, the skipper admitted to fatigue and the intent was missing.
Swing at the MCG, pace at Gabba and bounce at WACA tore the India batsmen to shreds. The 200-mark was crossed on only one occasion by the batsmen --at the MCG against Australia, but even then the 267 was not enough.
This was because the bowlers were not effective. Their ineptness was again on display against England at Brisbane where they failed to fight after the batsmen had collapsed.
In three innings, 14 scalps are all the India bowlers managed. Bowling out the opposition looked a distant dream. They appeared to bowl to a plan on Friday, but the batsmen had left them with a mountain to climb.
Captain Dhoni was at his diplomatic best after the loss, but so poor was his outfit’s performance 2011 Eng SA NZ Aus 0-1 (2) 0-2 (4) that he could not help but admit failure.
“Collectively we haven’t done well. As a complete bowling unit, we haven’t bowled well. As a complete batting unit, we haven’t put enough runs on the board,” he said. “If you see the ODI pattern here and in England, we have lost too many wickets in succession, which puts pressure on the batsmen. Also, we didn’t have all the players fit.”
The good news is India do not 0-4 (5) 0-3 (4) 2013-14 2014-15 - 0-3 (5) 0-5 (7) 0-5 (8) have an overseas tour in the near future to worry about. The bad news is that the most important event on the cricket calendar in less than two weeks away, and the same venues of Australia and
New Zealand will host the
World Cup.