India suffered a huniliating defeat at the hands of their arch rivals Pak. Hats off to Pak for a spirited performance. Woolmer deserves a lot of credit for forging a winning combination.
It was a classic test of resilience and character for the star studded Indian batting side, and sadly, they failed miserably. As an ardent ricket fan more than a few thoughts come to mind (not to mention the frustration!)
- First and fore most comes a look at India’s so-called batting strength. Too much revolves around Viru and Dravid. If both these guys fail chances of India putting up a decent show are very suspect.
- Maybe its time to clean up the middle order. This will involve some tough calls. Ganguly has probably played his last Test and needs a break. With a fighting century, Yuvraj has earned his middle order spot. VVS has been repeatedly getting bowled or lbw to the same incoming delivery that its proabably time for the selectors to seriously evaluate his spot in the team. There is no shortage of bench strength — S. Sriram, Venugopal Rao, Hemang Badani come to mind and there are many more out there.
- Sachin needs to make up his mind about preserving himself to survive longer. He has to pick between ODIs and Test. Getting clean bowled twice in a Test match when he seemed well set is a sure sign of decline for the master batsman. I hope he bows out gracefully rather be forced out like Ganguly. He definitely has plenty of cricket left in him but he can’t score 60 runs in three innings and expect to have a permanent place in the team.
- Players in form must be given a chance when they are in peak form. India lost a good opportunity to try out Wasim Jaffer.
- Chappell certainly has a point about Shoaib Akhtar chucking. Check out this video and decide for yourself. The short ball he bowled to get Sachin out in the last World Cup certainly looked suspect and this one her just confirms his tendency to chuck intermittently, especially when he ends in his bouncers.
- India’s bowling is very weak and unreliable. India is in desperate need of a tearaway fast bowler. Its time to bring in some new comers to the Test side and give Agarkar (in particular) and Zaheer Khan a break. VRV Singh, Munaf Patel, Sreesanth etc. might be worth trying out.
Pakora Korner 
No need for wholesale changes. Just bring in a solid opener to support Sehwag. Dravid goes back to #3 and Laxman at #5. Drop Saurav-da and keep Yuvraj at his current spot. Take a whole bunch of kids from Haryana, Punjab and even Kashmir, feed the buggas nice mutton biryani, make them pump iron and run 10 miles twice a day and then teach them to bowl fast and straight. Bring back importance to the Duleep trophy games, and play more of them. Import fast bowlers from other parts of the world and assign them to these teams. And make people play till the games reach an end. No winning on the basis of first innings lead. Then we will start to win abroad.
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Pran, I saw the video, and it doesn’t look like a chuck at all. I’ll agree there are many times it does, but this one didn’t look like that. Prasad
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I beg to disagree. The last part of the video clearly shows the arm bending. The short ball that Sachin got out to in the World Cup was an identical “chuck” in my opinion. No one said anything at that time. Now it has happened again. Of course, its hard to be conclusive but if there is a strong suspicion, the ICCC must review the guys action for specific deliveries. In general, I think his action is fine but there are suspect deliveries like this one. Btw, I am not picking on Shoaib. I think Murali’s action s very very suspect too!
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