In the aftermath of New Zealand‘s demolition of World Champions India 4-0 in a five match one-day international series, people raised eyebrows over India’s status of World Champions and the World Number 1 ODI side. In some perspective or the other, Indian team is failing to prove why they are called so. A World Champion side should dominate their opponents on any conditions. But the current Indian side that won the 2011 ICC World Cup and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy did not live up to the expectations. The Indian team is unbeatable at home chasing any total with ease. When they tour overseas, the real problem starts for the Men in Blue. After a humiliation in the ODI series against South Africa, the Indian team toured New Zealand to prove their critics wrong about their techniques overseas. Even the eighth placed Kiwis destroyed the Indian team by a 4-0 margin. Inspite of his brilliant performance throughout the series, India Skipper Ms Dhoni should be partially blamed for the defeat. While analyzing the reasons for India’s loss, one of the major reason for the sham is the poor team selection.
Initially it was understood that rookie all rounder Stuart Binny will be chosen ahead of either Ravindra Jadeja or R. Ashwin because of the conditions in New Zealand are said to assist the pacers than the spinners. The spin twins played the first two ODI’s. Amid their poor performances, they were retained for the third ODI. Yet again they failed to deliver with the ball but earned India some pride with their batting that made India to tie the third ODI. With that performance, they retained their place for the last two ODI’s.
One of the big failures for Team India in the recent past is Suresh Raina. His affinity towards getting out to a rising delivery continued in the tour of New Zealand as he was bounced out in the first three ODI’s that made the team management to drop him for the third ODI. His teammate Shikhar Dhawan too was given a break in the fourth ODI that prompted the inclusion of Stuart Binny and Ambati Rayudu. Rayudu had a decent outing with the bat whereas Binny was not given a chance to take guard in the middle. The Kiwi batsmen were at ease against all the frontline bowlers and Dhoni used Binny for just 1 over and Rayudu bowled three overs. It was very evident that Dhoni himself did not take that decision but he was forced to do so.
Atleast Binny should be happy that he was included in the playing XI for 1 match. Even though he was not given the opportunity to prove himself, he should consider himself lucky as the Indian team management completely ignored Amit Mishra and Ishwar Pandey throughout the series. Though Ashwin kept on leaking runs in the middle overs, Dhoni decided to go in with him instead of leg spinner Amit Mishra. On the other hand, Ishwar Pandey wasn’t even considered for the selection despite the continuous failures of Varun Aaron and Ishant Sharma. Things became even worse when Virat Kohli opened the batting with Rohit Sharma in the fourth ODI even when the team had Ajinkya Rahane in the playing XI.
It was a rare failure MS Dhoni, the skipper. There are some buzz in the social networking sites that the Indian selectors should consider bringing back Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh instead of these youngsters. In my opinion, their period at the top level is all but over. Now its the time for the younger generation to pull up their socks and win laurels for the country. With the World Cup barely a year away, this loss will be a wake up call for the Indian team management. Let’s hope the Indian management get their combination right at the earliest so that the team can dictate terms for the opposition. With the test series coming up later this week, the preferred bowling line up is : Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Shami/ Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishwar Pandey.
