sachin versus killer instinct...

shared by straight point on Friday, November 06, 2009

so we again finished second best against a team which is not even their third best... and i particularity liked what purna said on her blog...

India might as well wear yellow at the next game. They seem to love playing for Australia.

this basically sums up the series for me... nothing less... nothing more...

india has managed to dig a hole for themselves spectacularly in this series slowly but surely... when they actually should have been thinking to rest some over worked players (its been five intense matches already) they now find themselves in a position where they need to win the next two matches on trott to win this series and with it the no.1 spot in the odi ranking... and this is not happening for the first time...

australia on the other hand is sitting pretty... they had nothing to lose in this series and they have nothing to lose in the next two games either... if we crush them in next two matches... we are expected to... but if we manage to lose this series then you know what i mean... so they are coming out in middle with virtually no pressure whatsoever as it is india who has to do all the running...

our weakness of closing out games is again highlighted nakedly in this series and apart from mohali... yesterday's match illustrate it more than anything...

sachin played the brilliant innings and me as a fan is being told by almost everybody that you do not judge a player by the result of the game... that you are not a sports lover if you judge the greatness of the game or the player like sachin by the result... but to me sachin tendulkar's innings epitomize the lack of very killing instinct that we seems to lack all these years...

the instinct that yells that do not... do not in any circumstances give an inch to opposition when you have the chance to do it... coz you may not get the same favor when you will be under the boot...

yes the result can not take away the greatness of the man... but for a second... ask yourself a question... what yesterdays innings proved about sachin that you didn't know already...? had sachin got out to a lessor score would he had become bit of lessor mortal in our eyes...?

and an honest answer to above questions will be resounding NO...

we learn from our heros coz we look at them... we follow them and when you see them floundering at last hurdle... it hurts... and this was not the first time it has happened... we have already seen it happening at chennai...

if you look at yesterday's innings dispassionately for a moment you will agree that the man on 175 odd are not supposed to get out this softly... when the requirement of the team is reduced to almost run a ball... especially when you know you are the last recognised batsman at the crease... and if you can not see it off... how come you can expect lessor mortals in jadeja... or tailenders to finish the job you were supposed to do...

how these infants of cricket will learn if you as veteran won't show them how to do it in first place...?

you might come hard at me and say what 10 other players were supposed to do in a team... but sir... when you say 'team' then there are going to be days when one player will be standing at the debris... be it gambhir, yuvraj, dhoni or raina... but that will take nothing away from the fact that whoever will be left standing after hard fought battle... near the sight of unexpected victory... will have to finish it in teams favor... otherwise the margin of defeat will just be a mere teasing number... this is what makes good team a great team coz even if individual wins it they reflect the mentality of  the team...

after the match was over my younger brother asked me a question in his dejectedly sinking voice...

"yaar jab bhi cricket jitutaa hai... india hi kyon harta hai..."
(brother whenever cricket wins why only india ends up losing it...)

and i just do not have answer to this question...

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

on a batting paradise, gauti, yuvi,and MS scored a total of 23 runs off 38 balls. chasing 350, in my opinion, that is criminal from your top batsmen. if this team has any chance of making it, it is not going to be because of one man standing in the debris. you would have noticed that every great team has at least two players from the top order doing SOMETHING. yes, they are match winners, but saying that sachin is more at fault is ludicrous. this game was lost by poor bowling, running between the wickets, and most of all, the lack of someone ELSE standing up and saying, okay, i will second fiddle to one of the great ODI innings of all time.

straight point said...

thanks for you comment anon... but you have completely overlooked the crux of the post... i don't blame you anon the word sachin does this to many... :)

the fact is that even gauti, yuvi, ms scored 23 runs... even for our bad bowling... even for the bad running betwee wickets and even for everything that gone bad with india... we could have still won the game and this can not change...

this is also a fact that when we needed 16-18 runs he was the last recognized batsman at the crease... and this also can not change...

so while we should admire what he did... on the same token we should also not close eye to what and how it happened...

achettup said...

It is a good post, as always, and you would have to agree to the main point. I first saw Nesta make this argument at Sam/Sameer/Chandler's blog, and it is very valid. The fact is Sachin played a risky stroke and it did not come off. I am 100% certain that Sachin was very disappointed with himself for not seeing the game to its conclusion.

But I disagree with people who say he always does this and has not scored when it has mattered. There have been instances in the past where his sheer determination to ensure India achieved an objective has shone through and he has not let up until that objective had been realized. Everyone remembers the Chennai test which Pakistan won, but what about the Chennai Test India won last year? He stayed to the end, he coaxed Yuvraj to play within himself. What about that innings in an ODI against a decent Zimbabwe attack in SA when he scored a century that ensured India qualified to play SA in the finals? What about his Whirlwind centuries in Sharjah against Aus twice, both times making absolutely certain that India succeeded, first in qualifying and second in taking the tournament. So pigeonholing the great man as one who is unable to complete the job is wrong in my opinion. He has played so many matches, he has achieved so much that maybe we want to believe he is perfect and so we criticize him for the few occasions that he does not take the team home.

straight point said...

thanks for understanding ach... sometimes its hard to convey something related to sachin...

i agree that he has seen us off on many occassion but limited writer in me could not cover all those things when its still hurting as a sachin fan who wanted him to finish it off...

though it may come out that i am labeling sachin as the one who always flounder at the last hurdle... what i wanted to convey that onle reason that chennai innings dont find mention in the very top of best innings ever played in test coz he dint finish it and so will be this innings as one of the best innings ever in odi... when we look back down the years...

which also adds to the hurt... :(

achettup said...

I'm sorry SP, I didn't mean to imply you had said that and I feel your pain like almost every other Indian cricket fan. But the trouble is every site I visit has this stupid argument between people either saying Sachin cannot win the big games and see the side through and the other side who yells about the other Ten being unable to support.
Neither are correct in my opinion. My previous comment addresses the first side. For the second group, this was one match out of how many in recent times that India has depended so heavily on Sachin? It isn't the 90s starting all over again, we lost a close match, that is all, let it go. Don't look too deep and draw false conclusions is my message to them. This is sport, and sometimes it can be heartbreaking. But support your team, support your best player when they really need it, as heartbreaking as it is for the fans, the team must be hurting twice as much considering how they have let themselves down. The fact that its arguably the weakest OZ side in since that 434 match makes it all the worse, but appreciate too that the first-choice players in the Aus squad stood up and played brilliantly.

straight point said...

oh! don't be ach... i know you dint mean it so dont even think about it...

as for your point on the being the weakest oz team... and as i said in my post that if we can not beat this team at our home as a team who is aspiring to become no.1 than i think we all should reconcile to the fact that we will never be...

oz could play this way coz, as i mentioned in the post, they were playing without any pressure and now what will happen is that the whole experience could be so draining that i don't know how we are going to play against srilanka coz even if it starts with tests the core group of players remain same... specially bowlers...

Golandaaz said...

It was one of those innings which was bigger than the game. I frankly did not care that India did not win. Sachin won and for a brief moment he seemed bigger than the game itself. Surprisingly there was no hurt at this loss. May be it was because of the meaninglessness of the 7 game serious or may be it was because I sort of knew how Ponting felt....

how can you enjoy a win when 11 of your guys end up winning against 1?

Megha said...

SP

couldn't agree more..the magic of the innings was unquestionable...but how I wish he would have stayed another 3 overs and finished it off...

Vim said...

Don't kid yourself Golandaz, it was 11 against 11.

And Punter looked mighty pleased with it all.

Superb innings as SRT's was, Aus deserved the win.

Nathan said...

Yeah, torn between saying Sachin deserving the win or saying it was better this way because Sachin got to stand-out whilst making sure the other ten no-hopers didn't get unjustly rewarded.

Well played by Australia, mind-bogglingly well-played by Tendulkar and hopefully the other ten can pump themselves up for the next match.

scorpicity said...

fabulous quote from your bro!!

Anonymous said...

Criticise sir. We have got that right. Thats what we can do. Lets do it. Lets rip him apart. Thats Indianism.

Anonymous said...

If Sachin alone is expected to win all the games for India have him play all the games single handedly and rest all other players.

straight point said...

gol... there is no dispute on the brilliance of innings... but even if we don't care for the end result... the scoreline down the years will say 3-2 at the end of days and if we happen to lose the series... we will be butt of joke that now we can not win it even at home against this third rate oz side...

mind you i am not saying that we will lose series coz of it... i am just trying to pain a bigger picture of game...

i also find it hard to comprehend to your view that the innings was above the game... coz that innings was not played in isolation... that very game... gave the platform to player like sachin who played the gem of innings...

but as always we are entitled to our opinions... :)

straight point said...

my wish too megha... thanks!

straight point said...

welcome vim at sp... hope you will keep dropping by...

i have never understood this business of 1 vs 11... but i must say looks good to read... :)

straight point said...

welcome nathan... interesting angle of unjustly rewarded tho... :)

yes if this innings can not inspire them enough to crush oz in next two game... than i am afraid dhoni hit the nail on its head when he said that we don't lack anything on talent wise but on mental aspect...

straight point said...

cheers scorpy!

straight point said...

sam... i kno its difficult to reason with you when sachin is involved... but let me give it a shot...

in the last test series in srilanka sehwag scored 200 runs at galle i think and the second best score was 50 from gambhir... in the team featuring all greats...

so should we have done the same as suggested by you...?

as i said in a team sports there are going to be days when others wont score as much you expect them to but that in no way makes the responsibility of the one who is scoring any lessor...

Golandaaz said...

As I said, this series is meaningless from my stand point...hence I really did not care about the result and for me, it was one of those innings that became larger than the game itself.

straight point said...

gol... just a question aside this sachin debate...

if the result of this series winning which we will become no.1 in world... does not matter to you then which series will matter... india v deshis...?

Golandaaz said...

well that i admit is the only talking point of this series. So okay I am wrong to say the series is meaningless

However there are certain knocks that need to be evaluated outside the context of the match result. I for one felt no hurt to see india lose. In fact I was at work, switched off the match after Sachin got out and it was only much later when I got home that it even occurred to me to check the result

Purna said...

Oh, you weren't being sarcastic.

There are still two games left you know. And maybe India is just trying to make the series interesting ;).

straight point said...

gol... so we basically agree the series was not pointless...

straight point said...

you can say that again purna... :)

Nathan said...

Thanks for the welcome :D

Regrettably, it looks like India may have tried to make things too interesting by half...

I suspect this series will have people scratching their heads for some time to come. Certainly the Bet365 betting odds on CI have been favouring India for every game of the series so far.

From an Australian perspective it is reassuring to see that Cricket Australia's development work, and the domestic competitions have been paying off. I could not recognise half the Australian line-up at times this series, but the new-bloods seemed to make the switch from the domestic to the international smoothly.

Shining lights for the Indian side are somewhat hard to find, but I think you can at least take away that Dhoni has captained well for his part, and Tendulkar is as epic as ever.

The last match may be a dead-rubber, but it will probably be important for many that this series ends 4-3 not 5-2...

straight point said...

thanks nathan... :)

before the series even started i said that the series will be decided by the factor who will put discipline over spectacle...

contrary to what you may believe i still think we are better than oz team talent wise... but talent without temperament can take you this far only... what oz were lacking in terms of talent they more than made it up with the temperament... they appeared more ready and eager to grab the opportunities...

although it hurts as indian fan but deep down my respect to oz team grew manifold coz they went about business concentrating on things that were under their control rather than lamenting on the things like injuries etc that were beyond their control...

the final figures of the series is just for the academic purpose... and i find the notion playing for pride rather bullshit... coz what preventing india to play for pride in first six games in first place...?

cheers and enjoy the moment... :)

Nathan said...

"contrary to what you may believe i still think we are better than oz team talent wise... but talent without temperament can take you this far only... what oz were lacking in terms of talent they more than made it up with the temperament... they appeared more ready and eager to grab the opportunities..."

Actually, that sums up a lot of my feelings on the matter.

There is a skill differential in India's favour, but there is too much of the individual hothead, not enough of the team.

The Australians had their discipline and their mindset backing them. A lot of teams may talk about never-say-die, but Australian cricket is one of the few institutions I've seen that really deliver on that point, and its big advantage.

The result may be academic as far as the results of the series go, but momentum can be a powerful thing and a dead-rubber can set the tenor for a series to come.

"cheers and enjoy the moment... :)"

We'll try; hopefully with a bit of humility :D
No doubt, India will bounce back from this. Best of luck of luck to the Indian team, some of cricket's best showmen and performers!

straight point said...

i will try to pass on your optimism to team india nathan... :)

Freddy said...

I still can't believe that shot!
Arrrgh.

straight point said...

yes freddy... that shot evoked the same feeling in me too...

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