With little over a week to go for the cricket World Cup, spin legend Bishan Singh Bedi feels India are addressing their injury concerns too late in the day and the defending champions have still not identified their core team. Injured players Rohit Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja and Ishant Sharma will be tested on February 7, a day before the Men in Blue play their first warm-up game against Australia and Bedi believes that the team management has left things too late.
“Having been in Australia for two-and-a-half-months they have not really touched base with the nucleus of the team. Five or six players should form the crux of the team, who remain a certainty in every match. One or two changes can happen on the pretext of changing a combination or resting a player but by and large six or seven players should be constant throughout and that hasn’t happened so far,” Bedi said in an interview.
“I feel pretty strongly that this team is being tested so late. You are testing the fitness of players a day before the warm-ups begin and you are leaving things too late. This should have happened very early,” he said. The former Indian captain asserted that his “logical complain” pertains to the late fitness test of some of the players. “Even if changes have to happen on medical grounds then it is too late. There is hardly any time left for players to be sent back and replacements to be flown in,” he argued.
Admitting that it will be difficult to bounce back from a below-par performance in the Tests and the recently-concluded tri-series in Australia, Bedi suggests that the only way out for the team is to raise their self-esteem, which according to him is at an all-time low. “They have to individually raise their self-esteem. How they do it it’s entirely up to themIJ Self-esteem is a very individual effort. Self-esteem is how good you feel about yourself in your own eyes. Not in the eyes of the public, or the media or the coach or captain,” Bedi opined.
“Pakistan have also seen little success in the recent past. Unhone kaunsa kaddoo mein teer maara hai (Even they have not done anything worthwhile). But we should not look at Pakistan like that. Our canvas should increase. We should look at the bigger picture. The big picture should be the World Cup itself,” Bedi said. “Don’t forget India is defending the title. So every team wants to beat India, even Afghanistan, because India are the holders of the trophy. So the onus is on India, they cannot turn around and say that they have nothing to lose,” he said.
“Now that they have won the World Cup, they only have to hang on there. What’s more to get, so they can only come down from here else hold on to their glory,” he added. “Very difficult to predict the final-four or winners in this edition as it is a very open World Cup. This is the most exciting part of this World Cup, it is very open. At least five or six teams are in the hunt. “Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, England they all are in the fray. Even Sri lanka and Pakistan cannot be ruled out. Especially teams who have not won the coveted prize will of course be more hungry like South Africa, England and New Zealand,” Bedi said.
Terming India’s 1983 Prudential World Cup win as the turning point of Indian cricket, Bedi said that the Sachin Tendulkar era was also responsible for taking things forward. “I think 1983 was the turning point although it happened in a very flukish manner. But whatever happens in somebody’s destiny, it happens in this manner. So yes that was the turning point and subsequently it was hugely capitalised by Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS laxman and Sachin Tendulkar. “Importance of playing in a World Cup has changed from 1975 to now. Woh toh ibtada thi, ab toh inteha hai (that was the beginning, now it is the extreme). But now I wish them luck while sitting here. Honour of responsibility lies with the boys because they have to do it on the field. On the field they are on their own,” he concluded.
‘India lacks stabality’
Chennai: Former India captain Srinivas Venkataraghavan is of the opinion that Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team lacks consistency and expressed concerns at the “unstable” opening combination going into the World Cup. “Present Indian team lacks consistency. The most important factor — be it the top or middle-order batting or the bowling — the fact of the matter is that consistency is the key to success. That is lacking in the Indian team,” the 69-year-old, said.
Talking further about the lack of consistency, he said, “They lack the application and mindset. Motivation might be there. They all have the aspirations, the enthusiasm to play. But they will have to perform on the field of play.” “It is pretty easy to predict the four teams in the semi-finals. Two best teams in the fray are South Africa and Australia. According to him, bowling is India’s biggest worry.“The worry is our bowling. Our medium pacers are not consistently bowling good line and length. They are getting carried away by the bounce and bowling short pitch deliveries.That is fodder for the Australian batsmen or anybody,” Venkatraghavan concluded.