India’s reputation in one-dayers lies in ruins
India has capitulated to South Africa in the most abject manner in the five-match one-day international cricket series that concluded on Sunday. The final score may read a respectable 3-2 in the Proteas' favour, but the drubbing the Indian team received in the final match at Mumbai, and the disgusting manner in which it allowed the first and the third games to slip out of its grip, tell a different story. It is a story of lack of application, absence of effective strategy and plain sloppy performance. There is no point in the Indian management blaming extraneous factors for the pathetic display by the MS Dhoni-led side; team direction Ravi Shastri is reported to have made caustic comments on the Wankhede stadium pitch.
Even if one accepts for argument's sake that the curator of the pitch had done a less than satisfactory job, let's not forget that the South Africans made the most of the same pitch that the Indians failed to exploit. Blaming the curator, the wind, the heat, the crowd etc is an excuse to shift the accountability for a loss that rests squarely with the Indian side. Dropped catches and poor throws by Indian players allowed the South African batsmen to rampage and score a mammoth 438 runs — and that too for the loss of just four wickets. Three batsmen got hundreds in the process. Although the first wicket fell early on, the Indian bowlers could not capitalise on the opening. It appeared that they had lost all hope and were playing to somehow let the 50 overs be done with, bowling everywhere but to the field which had been set. This was evident in the way the South Africans piled up runs without any opposition as the overs went by.
Indeed, it can be said that India considered the match lost after 300 runs came off the visitors' knocks. Thereon, the home side went through the motions of completing the innings. The defeatist attitude spilled over when the Indian batsmen began their task. Barring Ajinkya Rahane and Shikhar Dhawan, none of the batsmen crossed even the 50-run mark. This was an occasion for team effort in order to come within striking distance of the humongous target, but there seemed to be no team in sight; just a couple of batsmen held out for a while, and the rest were eager to return to the dressing room at the earliest. The fielders had got away with a poor show in earlier two games which the side had won, but that proved fatal in the decider.
Perhaps Dhoni is right in saying that the one-day Indian side has yet to fully integrate, but integration cannot come with back-breaking defeats. In any case, the team seemed quite ‘integrated’ when it won two games in the series.The time has come for a thorough introspection on how things went wrong — what went wrong is written all over for everyone to see. It's for the captain and the team management to take stock. Hard measures have to be applied. Clearly, wrong decisions were taken, both on the field and in the selection process.