A glimpse of the future.....

There used to be a time in Indian cricket, when the openers would get out cheaply, Sachin would come in and play an absolute blinder and India would go on to lose the Test match. The last time this happened was in Kingston 2001, and after that if somebody had said to me the next time this would happen is in 2010, I would have laughed myself to death. But, yes this is a sign of India's growth as a Test team and forget what happened today at Nagpur, we can still claim a right to the number 1 spot(come on guys , Dhoni eventually will have to lose one someday). But on the brighter side, Indian cricket and public would have known the true value of Rahul Dravid, and had he been there he would have only got out after tea to Steyn(i wouldnt blame Indian batting, the spell if it had been painted would be hanging in Louvre now!) and that would have been crucial in the long run. I am not even angry that India lost inside 4 days. What made me angry was an article in Cricinfo referring about India's so called bleak future!

http://www.cricinfo.com/indvrsa2010/content/story/447467.html

Bleak future? The so called explanation given was that, in the absence of Dravid and Laxman, and also the see saw form of Yuvi, Indian batting future looks very bleak in the presence of a quality bowling line up.

I could agree with only one fact in the above statement, about SA's bowling, but since when did the future become so bleak for India? And, add to that based on this Test's batting line up?

Poor Saha...For no fault of his, he was dropped from the frying pan into the fire to face the fury. But to his credit, he did bat decently in the second innings for a man playing his first test. Vijay, had his first twin failures in a test match, and that too in his 4th test match to be precise, and Badrinath played a responsible innings which showed more of his temperament than class, and for a debutant showing temperament is very good indeed! Now put your hand on your heart and say that if you are thinking of India's future batting line up, the top 6, will these 3 feature in that?

Surely Vijay, may be Badrinath, but Saha? Ok, let us just say for argument sake that these three would make the future Indian batting line up, the author goes on to say the steadiness of Dravid, the classiness of Laxman would be missed and cannot be replaced. That is true, inspite of whatever we have in future. Just because, we are going to miss something good doesnt mean that whatever we have is bad? And to prove the point, the author goes on to say that when India won after following on Laxman and Dravid were its prinicipal architects!

Agreed- but that was in 2001, while Laxman made his debut in '97 and Dravid in '96. It took them 5 years to come up with a masterpiece like that. To take matters into perspective, India's fab 4 as it was called before Sehwag came into the picture cut a sorry figure when it failed to chase 120 at Barbados against the WI, with only Sachin and Azhar being the experienced guys in a young batting line up consisting of Ganguly, Laxman and Dravid! And I dont have to mention, Bangalore, Karachi, Cape Town, Mumbai etc..( the list is long if we start talking about Indian batting collapses)

We are in the process of making the same mistake the Windies did, trying to replace a legend with another player and expecting him to match the legend's feats.

There cannot be another Dravid, but surely we have enough strength in Pandey, Pujara, Vijay, Raina, Badri, Mukund, Karthik, and may be a long shot..Kaif to fill in the No.3 slot which is not difficult. The guy need not(cannot) bat like Dravid, but if he bats like a proper No.3 thats more than what we ask from him!

If anything is bleak, its our bowling-who after Zaheer, and who is that turbaned guy who looks like Bhajji? Somebody ask Ishant to start bowling like he did in Nagpur 2008? He is increasingly starting to bowl balls that I bowl and thats scaring me.