Friday, April 3, 2009

The MEN IN BLUE have arrived, finally, hopefully!

When I got up this morning and saw India struggling at 204/6, the first thought that crossed my mind was- here they go again. Though it was much better than what I got to see in 2002 series( India were often bundled out for less than 100) but the expectations off late have been high. But, I am glad I was wrong. The resilience shown by Harbhajan, Zaheer, Ishant and Munaf was adorable. This is not the first instance in the immediate past where the tail has wagged. Bhajji and Zaheer have off late shown that they are worthy of being called all-rounders.This probably is another sign that Indian cricket is finally coming off age.

Infact this series by itself has given us a lot to admire in this team. The first test was a showcase of batting prowess of India, the 2nd second was an example of how not to surrender and keep fighting and the third(till now) has 2 things to be noticed i.e. we can bat and fight no matter what conditions are there and our tail can bat and bat well.

I personally felt utmost happiness watching the grit and determination shown by gambhir,laxman, tendulkar and co in the 2nd test. A lot of times in the past India easily succommed to pressure on the last day but this was not to be the case this time around. Batting for 2 days straight and losing just 4 wickets was a huge achievement especially after having fared poorly in the 1st innings. This speaks volumes for the confidence these guys possess. I emphasise on confidence because talent was something that we always had in abundance, it was just a matter of application.

But, something that has still not been seen is an amazing display by the bowlers. We certainly have a better bunch of pacemen then we ever had and they have been performing decently. But this bowling attack has not been able to make up for the one odd less than average batting performance. Once that starts to happen, I am sure theres no stopping the men in blue.

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