India crumble in ODI
The t20 match that Ivan saw on Friday and the ODI international at Lords I went to yesterday were proof negative that the white ball game can and does produce as many dreary, predictable affairs as the red ball one.
England set a formidable target of 321 with Joe Root belying his t20 form, which led him to being dropped, making 113. It was soon apparent that India, the supreme chasers, were not interested in winning.
Over the years there has been a continuum of master Indian batsmen from Kapil Dev, Tendulkar, Waxman, Dravid, Ganguly, Dhoni to Kohli and a conveyor belt of attacking spin of which the latest is left arm wrist spinner – an unusual skill these days – in Kuldeep Yadav.
Sadly Dhoni in his 323 ODi international has never batted more passively and it’s a poor message to fans who paid expensively for tickets that, after losing by 81 runs, the bowler Chadal should admit that they were not interested in the chase at an early stage but used their innings as practice for the final game in the series at Headingley.
Not that the denizens of the Upper Mound round me seemed too worried as alcohol, despite the great heat, was drunk copiously. By 6.00 pm, with 10 overs to go, I made my excuses and left.
My guest, my Indian accountant, was baffled by the lack of any enterprise by India.
I was impressed by David Willey who scored 50 not out and took 2-48 for less than 5 runs a over. This is the type of cricketer this format needs. He bats well down the order and can contribute a useful knock to the final score whilst being an economical bowler. The two spinners Moeen Ali and Rashid Khan also were mean. I will admit that the critique of the white ball predominance being detrimental to spin bowling was wrong as it is a useful tool. The speedster is always liable to a streaky snick for 4 and the spinner can be harder to put away. Kuldeep did take the wickets, almost immediately on being introduced to the attack, of Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow but ultimately went for more runs than the English spinners.
Given the heat and the travel it was not the greatest sporting experience and had I watched it on tv I would have switched over for England v Belgium. England did not go for it when the game was clearly slipping away from them against Croatia and a similar criticism is justified of India.
My mind went back to one of the legendary Test innings at Lords -Ted Dexter’s 70 against the West Indies in 1963.
I met the great man a few years back and when I asked him how he felt walking through the famous old red brick pavilion at the time he simply replied “The game was going away from us, something needed to be done …”, a call that India might have made.
