History is going to repeat for SA once again, or what???

Won all the previous matches and lose semi or final….

1st semi…PAK Vs. SA. PAK is in commanding position and right now they are the favorite…SA after 10 overs 60/3 chasing 150 to win.

Well….it is too early to predict so and it is too late (night) in India to write more…so…lets watch out…

We can not be acting too funny by putting entire blame on Dhoni for some of his decisions in the crucial match against England on 14^th June. I say its funny because for similar decisions or sometimes even more amusing decisions taken by Dhoni, when worked, we made a king out of him. And today when it hasn’t worked out, we are ready to give him all the blame in the world.

If we take him to the heights for choosing Joginder for the last over in 1^st T20 World Cup final over, I do not see any reason why we should be bashing him for choosing Ravindra Jadeja to bat at 4. This decision was logically better than the Joginder one. One ok or ordinary sort of decision makes you king and one reasonably good decision offers you defamation – funny world.

Problem about such instinct based decision making is, you are judged by the result of that decision and not the quality of thinking. We tend to forget that decision is taken when one does not know the result. This can sound obvious or even ridiculous, but isn’t that what it is? Go by the book is not the best option always (if it was, Dravid would still be captaining India). Captain can not be bookish, he got to work on instincts and back his own instincts. When they do not work, as a captain you find yourself on wrong side, but if you keep working as the book says, you will definitely find yourself as somebody who is a non-achiever.

Suddenly, there have been a lot of talks and whispers about Dhoni batting at 3. So what? What’s the problem? He has done it before; it has worked or not worked a few times. How has it become a big problem now? “He should not be batting before Raina…”…hello… do we think it was right that he batted before Dravid, Yuvraj and Rohit Sharma in the past? Today some reporter is asking him questions like, “When will you start hitting sixes again – start playing like what you used to?” If India hadn’t lost the game, we would have still showered praises on Dhoni for having successfully geared himself to play anchor types innings; captain’s innings; so called!

This has happened in the past and will keep repeating; faces will change.

We celebrated Ganguly for fighting with selectors to get young guns in and then blamed his demanding style as arrogance and bias for some players. We hyped Greg Chappell’s theories of having youngsters and building team for 2007 ODI World Cup. When we got the result of World Cup, we threw him out and blamed for destroying Indian cricket. We took captain Dravid to heights by saying ‘he deserves’ because of methodic approach and then we blamed him for being bookish, weak and non-innovative.

Now, its Dhoni’s turn. For some of the common sense moves (which any cricketer would have done), we said ‘great captaincy’ and now for some of his not-so-bad decisions we say ‘poor captaincy’. Earlier we called him ‘cool’, ‘straight-forward’ etc, now we call him ‘arrogant’. You are crowned and within no time, you find yourself on the streets where each person in your kingdom is thirsty for your blood.

Praising somebody is a free choice but while defaming we need to be more responsible, more reasonable, rather.

India - very strong contender for WC T-20 2009; not only because they are champions of previous WC but the team is very strong and they performed very well at IPL-2009.

But…..there are certainly a lot of ifs and buts in their way towards the glory.

1. Dhoni: Is it necessary to play at No. 3 for him?

2. Sehwag: What had he done? Is he really injured or management and dhoni had made him “Barka”?

3. Bowling: A big Question mark?

Zahir bowled beautifully in last match. But still nobody knows whether he is 100% fit or not. Other bowlers have really lost their way. Ishant is bowling at good line & length in middle overs; but still he can’t be utilised is death overs.

Harbhajan - Is he only good for tests played in India or what? He bowls exceptionally well in one match and loses his way in next 3-4 matches. Pragyan Ozha though bowling nicely, is still very new to international cricket and India can’t rely on him too much.

Batting: Gambhir & Rohit opening the innings. Raina & yuvraj to follow - Looks very strong Upper Order. In Middle order, you have Dhoni, Yusuf & Irfan. I strongly believe that Pathan Brothers are good asset for India 20-20 team; they can hit the ball very hard and can bowl also. With Duo in team, you can have flexibility to play extra batsman or bowler as per conditions.

I strongly recommend that Raina should play at No. 3; whatever is the situation. No. 4 , 5, 6 can be changed as per the situation.

There are lots of points to be discussed; which we can & we will in this blog in coming days….so please share your valuable thoughts…………….