After the Lord’s test match there is so much bashing by journalists & former cricketer turned commentators and it is totally uncalled for. Journalists are fine because it is their job but what I fail to understand is the bashing from the former players who actually have played the game at the highest level and do understand and know what it takes to win and why teams loose. When it comes to criticizing they expect current players to play like robots and not make mistakes at all. The very purpose why they are hired for commentary is that they give key insights of the game and make rational statements based on playing the game at the highest level but now-a-days all they make is bold and smart-ass comments to grab media headlines and create self importance, an ordinary fan is so easily mislead.
A couple of people who have really gone overboard during last couple of days are Geoff Boycott who Indians used to like a lot, Ian Botham, Nasser Hussain, Sanjay Manjrekar & even Kapil Dev. I saw an interview done by Ayaz Memon with Boycott and that English trash kept saying gibberish things about Indian team, their poor fielding but mentions that dropping catches can happen to anybody (in this case happened with England) & casting doubt over India’s no 1 status and bragging about England easily beating India in 2nd test and claiming deservedly no1 spot. Ian Botham has blantanly said England will beat India easily too, come on dude you have played cricket at highest level and you also know that your team ain’t playing Bangladesh but India and it will not be easy beating India. It’s funny how people change so quickly, Eoin Morgan thanked IPL for giving him confidence which helped him get the test spot and Nasser Hussain criticizing IPL for India’s 1st test loss and going gaga over English players being protected and blah blah. What is captain expected to do when he loses his premier fast bowler in first session and due to lack of part time seamers decides to bowl and Mr Kapil Dev lambasted the move as mockery of test cricket, what non-sense is the old man smoking. None of blokes above experienced the amount of success that this current Indian team has tasted so they really have no right to talk crap. The purpose of all this is to create headlines and hog limelight. Ganguly was very honest and rationale in the post-match show when asked about the loss, he backed the boys to come back strong since a few seasons back he too was in the mix of things. I in past have not liked Sunil Gavaskar for being too biased towards Indians but when I hear these English commentators talk I do not fault Gavaskar at all.
Nobody is really talking about the failures of Strauss, Cook, Morgan & Swann as well as poor catching by England, do you really think you can be no 1 with poor catching? All are just busy trashing Indian team. I do agree with Dhoni whatever had to go wrong actually did go wrong. Yes, still lot of the top order batsman did play stupid shots which were not needed when you are trying to save the game.
I doubt if Indian cricketers really follow the newspaper and check what is actually written about them otherwise they will lose the 2nd test in two days only. I think Sreesanth will beat Munaf to play and if he has right frame of mind we will not miss Zak at all because he can really be deadly when in rhythm hopefully he quickly finds one (anyways Sreesanth is a much better test bowler than ODI). Another key aspect will be opening partnership, if it delivers than it should set the Indian batting right.
I would love to see India trash England in four days in the 2nd test and lay all the so called former players to rest.
