Yes, India’s woeful showing in overseas Tests needs to be addressed but let us not incite passion in doing so. It is critical that we remain collected as we sit down to find solutions to some problems that the Indian team is so obviously facing now. It is important not to become a part of the cacophony that follows each such defeat.

Let us remember that when the team was picked and when some cricketers left for Australia before the rest of the side to acclamatise themselves with the conditions Down Under, without exception, everyone said that this Indian side had the best chance to win a series in Australia.

Sadly, the team management did not respond to some signs that became obvious in the first two Tests in Melbourne and Sydney. For instance, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag’s inability to provide the team with a good start should have made the tour selectors seek options. VVS Laxman’s failures called for a harsh decision, too.

It may be a good idea to have Ajinkya Rahane or Rahul Dravid open the innings in Adelaide with Gambhir so that Sehwag can bat at No. 5. It will allow not only Sehwag the chance to play an attacking innings after the ball loses its shine but also be the first steps towards building a middle-order that is capable of taking over from giants like Dravid and Laxman.

It is important to let the likes of Rahane and Rohit Sharma gain the experience of playing Test cricket in Australia. Together with Virat Kohli, it can be expected that they will figure in Test cricket for some years now. It may not be the ideal situation for India to have few players with the experience of playing in Australia when it travels there next.

Of course, there has been some stinging criticism of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy, particularly with respect to his field placing. It does appear to his critics that he can’t seem to do anything right at the moment. I am not among those who believe that he has dipped as a tactician. It is just that his batsmen have let him down big time.

How can he be held responsible if the opening batsmen have been unable to accomplish the primary task of seeing the new ball through? How can he be responsible if experienced batsmen like Dravid and Laxman have been done in by late swing that the Australian fast bowlers have obtained?

Let us not get carried away by all the criticism by former players and others on our TV channels. Yes, as fans of Indian cricket, we are hurt, upset and angered by the dismal showing in Australia – in the wake of the disaster in England – but let us not get despondent and start castigating everything about the team and about Indian cricket.

Let me point out to those leading the lament on TV channels now that they have not devoted even two minutes of their time to talk about our top performers in Ranji Trophy, Rajasthan’s Robin Bist (885 runs) and Madhya Pradesh’s TP Sudhindra (40 wickets). Unless all of India – and I include the fans, media and former India cricketers in this – respects the Ranji Trophy again, we can be sure that its fortunes in Test cricket will sink to an all-time low.

And yes, even if Indians are an emotional and sensitive race, let us learn to remain calm at all times and not allow ourselves to be victims of herd mentality. It is time to let our minds overrule our hearts, embrace hope and remain confident that a system that threw up players of the calibre of Dravid and Laxman, Sehwag and Gambhir, Kohli and Dhoni will help us find solutions to the present set of problems too.

Studies in Contrast: Umesh Yadav (left) and Varun Aaron (Photo courtesy: hindustantimes.com)

They have shown that all it takes to succeed is an idea, a dream, a lot of hard work and an element of luck. The rise of players like Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron and Ajinkya Rahane has come as a confirmation that dreams are no longer a prerogative of the metros likes Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

A little over two decades ago, when cricket telecasts were still being produced by Doordarshan, it was hard to imagine so Indian cricketers coming from such diverse locations. The selling of TV rights to cable and satellite companies has had a huge role in the spawning of such dreams in small towns like Rae Bareily and Jamshedpur, Kochi and Cuttack, Moradabad and Gadag, Allahabad and Ikhar, Jalandhar and Ranchi.

There was a time when players had to migrate to established pastures to be able to play for India.  Vinoo Mankad moved from Western India to Nawanagar, Dattu Phadkar from Maharashtra to Bombay, Bishan Singh Bedi, S Madan Lal and Mohinder Amarnath from Punjab to Delhi and Karsan Ghavri from Saurashtra to Bombay. Prashant Vaidya is another example that springs to mind. He had to move from Vidarbha to Bengal to gain recognition, first to play for the India A team and then to gain four India caps in one-day internationals.

Of course, Kapil Dev had shown that one could stay put anywhere – his home town Chandigarh in his case – and rise to the top. There have been others like Sunil Joshi, the left-arm spinner from Gadag in Karnataka, fast bowler Debashis Mohanty and his fellow Orissa team-mate and opening batsman Shiv Sundar Das, Andhra wicket-keeper MSK Prasad as well as Kerala paceman Tinu Yohannan who has followed suit, even if without much success.

And over the past decade, cricketers like RP Singh, Munaf Patel, and S Sreesanth have come to the fore. And, towering over all else, we have also had one of India’s finest captains – Mahendra Singh Dhoni, if you must know his name, come from the back of beyond. Son of Pan Singh, a pump operator in MECON at Ranchi, Dhoni has entrenched himself in the hearts of millions of cricket fans in and out of India.

There is no doubt that Dhoni’s success story has been an inspiration for countless youngsters in India’s hinterland to dream of playing for India and pursue that dream with single-minded devotion. Indeed, it all starts with a dream. Munaf Patel, for example, just wanted to play cricket outside Ikhar and Bharuch. Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron, who have emerged as exciting fast bowling prospects for India this season, both dreamt of bowling quick – and consistently. They have repeatedly gone on record as saying they would not compromise on their pace.

One of the key elements in such careers is that their coaches – be it those who have imparted the fundamentals or those who have worked on the nuances – have not tampered too much with the basics. In Varun Aaron’s case, however, Dennis Lillee and TA Sekar helped him improve his action, making it more biomechanically correct. Yadav has worked with former India fast bowler Subroto Banerjee (who is now Vidarbha’s bowling coach).

Interestingly, Umesh Yadav’s formative years show a distinct contrast to those of Aaron and Rahane. While Aaron’s father C Paul Aaron taught him the first lessons of fast bowling and Rahane’s father Mayank took him to a coaching academy when he was eight, Tilak Yadav was quite clear that his son Umesh should work towards joining the police.

Hailing from Jamshedpur where his father was working for Mico Bosch, it was inevitable that sport was a big part of Varun Aaron’s life. His father was a club cricketer in his youth in Bangalore and his mother played basketball for Bihar. And what is more, his grandfather had played hockey for Bihar. Playing the under-15 tournament for the Polly Umrigar Trophy, Varun Aaron was picked up for grooming by the MRF Pace Academy in 2005.

Madhukar Rahane, Ajinkya’s father got his son to a coaching camp in Dombivili so that he would not break window panes at his home and stay fit. And then the family moved to Mulund so that he could attend coaching camps easily. As a junior cricketer, Ajinkya Rahane spent time as a ballboy during two international games at the Wankhede Stadium. That was enough for the lad from Mulund to dream of earning an India cap and back it up with a resolve to work hard for that.

By contrast, Umesh Yadav surfaced only as a 21-year-old tear-away in 2008. His father Tilak Yadav has worked as a miner in the Western Coalfields at Majri in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district. The young man had to cycle a long distance to play his cricket in Nagpur. He had to content himself playing tennis ball cricket until he got picked up for the Vidarbha under-22 side.

Of course, Yadav is not the first Indian cricketers to come from such a humble background. Even the first few generation of Indian cricket saw diversity – from the wealthy Parsi Mehallasha Pavri, a doctor by profession, to the Harijan groundsman Palwankar Baloo to the middle-class Sanskrit scholar Prof. DB Deodhar.

In the early 60s, Eknath Solkar, later to be unarguably India’s greatest ever fielder at forward short-leg, learnt his cricket at the Hindu Gymkhana in Bombay (as Mumbai was then known) where his father was the chief groundsman. Solkar could not hone his skills against the trainees and members of the club and had to wait for them to leave to be able to work on his game until the great Vinoo Mankad spotted his talent and took him under his wings. Vinod Kambli’s story was no different. Son of a mechanic, he grew up with 18 people in a room in a chawl in Bombay’s Bhindi Bazar.

In the current squad, Virender Sehwag is the son of a grain and flour merchant from Najafgarh in the outskirts of Delhi while Ishant Sharma, one of the stars of India’s last tour of Australia, grew up in a household where his father ran an airconditioner repair shop. And, it is a well-known story that Irfan Pathan, who is now on the road to a Test comeback, is the son of a Muezzin in Baroda.

Yet, what we get to see is some great bowling and batting feats but what remains tucked away in the background is the sacrifices that families make to see that the dreams of their children come true. And, happily, this has no longer been the prerogative of those living in the metros. Dreams have their own way of actualising. Sooner than later, even if for every such wonderful story, there are dozens of heartbreaking tales too. That perhaps is the beauty of this sport that we love so much.

(This piece was written for Prabhat Khabar‘s Sunday supplement, Ravivar)

The page in Prabhat Khabar where this article (translated of course) appeared

You may shut your ears to the raging debate on corruption in the country but there is no escape from the argument over the International Cricket Council’s recent decision to implement a watered down version of the Decision Review System in all forms of international cricket and over how the Board of Control for Cricket in India has called the shots in getting ICC to drop ball tracking technology (Hawk Eye) from the list of aids for TV umpires.

And I paused to think if anybody has been able to stop the march of time or the advent of technology. We have come a long way from using valve radios to transistors to digital radio; from using typewriters to computers; from telephones to mobile phones; from cars that guzzled fuel to machines that are fuel efficient. Yes, technology touches our lives in every which way possible and it is natural that it makes its presence felt in cricket too – not just with making the TV viewing experience a memorable one but also in ensuring that umpires make the right decisions.

Before anything else, let us try and understand why the Decision Review System (DRS) came into being.  A little bit of history of the advent of the TV umpire will help. Back in 1992-93, cricket embraced TV technology to help umpires with line decisions – stumping and run out dismissals as well. Gradually, umpires started looking at replays for catches taken in the close in cordon to see if the fielder caught the ball cleanly or if a portion the ball hit the ground before being scooped up.

With the quantum improvement of TV technology, umpires’ mistakes were exposed and scrutinised like never before. So, sitting in your drawing room, you would get to know the mistakes they committed. Even if the percentage of correct decision-making was 92 or 93 per cent, the wrong decisions would get noticed and talked about at length in various media platforms.

So the mandarins of the game felt a need to improve that percentage to 97 or 98 by using a system that allows television technology to be used in a way that would not result in too many delays, would not de-skill the umpires and would take some pressure off the umpires. They carried out some trials and when they noticed improved player behaviour and a significant reduction in the number of umpiring errors,

A number of technological aides are available for use to assist the third umpire arrive at a decision. These included slow motion replays, super slow motion replays and ultra motion camera replays from all available cameras, sound from the stump microphones with the replays at normal speed and slow motion, approved ball tracking technology, the mat, generated by the provider of ball tracking technology and not by the broadcaster, Hot Spot cameras and other forms of technology subject to ICC being satisfied that the required standards of accuracy and time efficiency could be met.

The ultimate aim was to make sure clear mistakes were avoided. And there was a firm belief that this system would help alleviate the problems created when mistakes – which appeared obvious on replays – were made. With feedback indicating that the majority of players and umpires were behind the system, ICC persisted with its implementation.

The popular New Zealand umpire Billy Bowden believed that having the DRS was the best thing since sliced bread. “From an umpires point of view I embraced it, lived it and loved it. The effect was all positive for me but I wasn’t surprised one iota. Why? Well, it gave me confidence to make good, strong umpiring decisions and I did not fall in to the trap of relying on the DRS to bail me out. I felt in control and relaxed. I didn’t lose confidence when two of my decisions were reversed in two Tests. Instead I felt good that the right decision was made. It also gave me strength to get back in the zone again and concentrate on the next ball knowing I wouldn’t be criticised in the papers the next day,” he said.

Why then has been there so much debate? The Indians – skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, legend Sachin Tendulkar and the Board of Control for Cricket in India – have been quite vociferous in their opposition to the use of only technology for the DRS. Their line of argument has been simple. Hawk-Eye’s ball tracking technology is inadequate. “We don’t have any problems with the Snickometer or Hot Spot but Hawk Eye is yet to convince us. This technology is based on assumption,” BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan said. “We welcome technology when it is 100 per cent error free. In this case it is not, so we would continue to oppose.”

It is not clear how much research BCCI conducted into Hawk Eye’s technology. On the other hand, Hawk Eye Innovations, part of Sony Professional Solutions Europe, have spent considerable time explaining the system’s accuracy. The South African team had reservations about the prediction model, more so after Mark Boucher was ruled out leg before to Stuart Broad in a Test match in January 2010 but overcame them when Hawk Eye produced documentary evidence to back that the umpire and the TV umpires’ decisions.

Talking of skeptics being won over, it is ironical that Sachin Tendulkar – arguably one of the staunchest critics of Hawk Eye technology – took recourse to winning a verdict in his favour after he had been ruled out leg before wicket to Saeed Ajmal in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 semifinal between India and Pakistan at Mohali.

What are the solutions? The ICC has agreed that further independent and expert research will be carried out into ball-tracking technology and its accuracy and reliability. The continued use of ball-tracking technology as a decision-making aid will now depend on bilateral agreement between the participating Boards. But more importantly, it must be realised that it is not as if only the technology counts. The men who make, control – operate, if `you please – and use technology to make decisions matter a great deal.

Much as the cricket romantics would like the complete elimination of technological aids for umpires, it is inevitable that it will gain a larger role in helping umpires make the right decisions – and, more importantly, ensure that the cricketers and their teams do not suffer because clearly apparent wrong judgments have been passed.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s dimissal off a no-ball in the Bridgetown Test is a case in point. During India’s first innings, Dhoni was out caught at mid-on off Fidel Edwards. Umpire Ian Gould suspected that the delivery could have been a no-ball and sought confirmation from the third umpire Gregory Brathwaite. Upon review, Brathwaite was shown a legitimate delivery by the host broadcaster and so Dhoni was given out. It was subsequently established that Brathwaite had been shown the wrong replay and that the delivery that led to Dhoni’s dismissal should indeed have been called a no-ball.

“The host broadcaster for this series, IMG Media, acknowledged the mistake and has apologised,” ICC Match Referee Chris Broad said.  “Having looked into the situation, I am satisfied it was an unfortunate but honest mistake in what is a tense and live environment. It is worth pointing out that the umpires followed the correct procedures and are without blame in this matter. “

Indeed, we have to acknowledge human error will be a part of everything that we do – whether it is in space programmes or aircraft crashes or train accidents. And if, as many of us believe, cricket is a microcosm of life, it is inevitable that there will be an element of human error in the use of any technology to make and confirm decisions. Yes, technology has to be embraced because it can ensure a greater accuracy in decision making but it must not take away from the charm of the game or interrupt its flow.

It would be foolhardy to dismiss technological aids to enable umpires make the right decisions. However, it is imperative that event owners (host cricket Boards, ICC) tell the rights holders not to air footage that has not been available to the umpires. More importantly, they must stop the former cricketers from leading an attack on umpires based on slow motion footage that is made available to them well after a decision is made.

After all, the debate has been fuelled in the main by TV producers stumbling upon evidence well after judgments have been passed and by willing former cricketers dwelling at length about these umpiring decisions. Before the advancement of broadcast technology, any criticism of the umpires was based on feedback from the players involved in the contest rather than those who were earning a living by commenting on the game.

With the final against Sri Lanka just two days away, the team itself may have quickly shifted its focus to calming its nerves and preparing for that massive game against Sri Lanka. But it appeared as if all India, unconcerned yet about the preparations for the final, was in a celebratory mood.

Each of us lost no time in picking our favourite freeze frames from the match. And those who had questioned skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s wisdom in choosing left-arm paceman Ashish Nehra over spin bowler R Ashwin quickly overcome such thoughts and joined the bandwagon of praise for his assured captaincy.

There was one frame that etched itself on my mind and I have to thank Shahid Afridi and Zaheer Khan – and their smiles – for that. Afridi chipped Zaheer Khan to mid-wicket and the ball dropped just short of the fielder there and managed just a single. As Afridi complete the run, he must have exchanged notes with Zaheer and they both broke into a smile. It was a lovely sight.

Of course, there were as many such scenes during the game – be it Harbhajan Singh exulting after bowling Umar Akmal or Sachin Tendulkar after taking a catch to dismiss Wahab Riaz or Mahendra Singh Dhoni uncharacteristically rushing to congratulate Harbhajan Singh on his claiming a wicket or Munaf Patel being hugged by Suresh Raina and Virender Sehwag.

Come to think of it, we loved the amazing spirit with which the teams played the match. Despite the unprecedented hype and hoopla that preceded the game, there was not a hint of acrimony on the field that some expected in the high-voltage clash. This was highlighted when Ashish Nehra did not claim a catch after fling himself forward at deep mid-wicket.

Our hearts also reached out when Afridi showed grace at the post-match presentations and poignantly when he unhesitatingly said “I want to say sorry to the people of Pakistan.” He knew India was the superior team and he knew that his team had to do something out of the ordinary to beat India in Mohali – and the closest that it went to that was Wahab Riaz’s incisive bowling.

Quite inevitably, as sonn as the cricket ball found safety in Virat Kohli’s hands to signal the completion of the match, India erupted in joy. The ultra-rich and the poor were all bound by a common thread that delighfully spelt victory. A diverse nation was united by emotions like relief and satisfaction, delight and, above all, national pride.

Cell phones across the country were buzzing, with calls and text messages dominaing the air waves; News TV channels forgot how they had raised questions about this team’s ability when it tied with England and lost to South Africa and tirelessy talking through the night about India’s victory over Pakistan and its after-effects. FM stations joined the festivities, too.

Thursday’s newspapers were expectedly euphoric, with cricket and ‘cricket diplomacy’ taking up most of the frontpage space. “After this… the Cup’s a Bonus” said one headline, reflecting the thoughts of most fans. A dispassionate observer may be forgiven if he thought that India had already won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, except of course for some exceptional reminders.

Yet, I would like you to pause for a moment and think: Does it need only a victory on the field of sport for India to feel proud of itself? Should we not seek such success in many other walks of life? Should we depend on cricket alone – and less frequently, other sport – to raise the morale of our nation and our self-esteem? Should we invest all our emotions in cricket?

I remember speaking with a wonderful ad-man Piyush Pandey some weeks ago and he pointed out that we are not competing so visibly against anyone in other areas and hence cricket causes such mass sentiments. Our film stars are not up against their contemporaries from Hollywood.  And when composer AR Rahman wins an Oscar or two, we do break out in some celebrations.

To be sure, cricket has fuelled an aggression in India but we desperately need such success in other streams of life too.The sooner our nation finds them the better it will be for us as we ride the bullish emotion and get ready to take on the world. Until that happens, we have much to thank the Indian cricket team for.

To me, Wednesday night was not just about the emotional outpouring of a cricket-crazy nation. It was about this wonderful country’s eagerness to be bound as one; it is about its diverse peoples collective desire to encourage success. The question is: who or what else is ready to capture the imagination of vast majority of the 1.2 billion people and make their hearts swell with pride.

(This piece has been written for Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar)

More than the 341 runs that he has scored so far in the World Cup, it is the manner in which he has scored them that offers us insight into this calming journey. Of the six innings he has played, he has failed to cross the minor milestone of the half-century just once, falling for 12 in that game against South Africa in Nagpur.

Clearly, he has enjoyed being given responsibility and has responded brilliantly, the 11 wickets that he has claimed being of significant value to the home side. But all this would not have been possible had he not understood that the journey inwards to rediscover that cricket was the best form of expressing his unquenched passion for life.

One of the true tests of a sportsman’s character is how well he recovers from being in the dumps, it can be said without fear of contradiction – or the charge of being biased – that YuvrajSingh has redeemed himself and regained his place in the hearts of many fans who were quickly finding new heroes to idolise.

Of course, while he had to deal with the demons plaguing his career by himself, he needed some friendly support too. Some of it came from skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who believes Yuvraj Singh is a big match player and performs well in the big tournaments and in the highly-rated bilateral series.

And there has been much support from the man he called grandfather – Sachin Tendulkar. There is no doubt that Tendulkar thinks highly of Yuvraj Singh’s natural talent and makes it a point to share his wisdom.

Perhaps he would not have been driven to do the soul-searching had he not been dropped from the Asia Cup squad in June 2010. Come to think of it, Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Punjara and perhaps even Virat Kohli nudged ahead of him in the Test match stakes, leaving the 29-year-old to wonder where he went wrong.

Was he paying the price for being dismissed by Muttiah Muralitharan twice in the Galle Test match in July last year? Or was he simply a victim of perception that he was lackadaisical in his approach to playing for India, neglecting his fitness and not being focussed on the preparation needed to compete?

Perhaps it was a bit of all this and more.

Yet, in January this year, when Yuvraj Singh made just one half-century in five one-day internationals in South Africa, some wondered why he was being persisted with and why he was picked to be a part of India’s World Cup campaign. To them, he was a spent force who was searching for the form that made watching him at the crease such an enjoyable pursuit.

Around that time, this writer picked Yuvraj Singh as the stand out performer for India at the World Cup. Read that piece here. It is a risk, in the best of times, picking one player from a squad that boasts of men like Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina, Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.

So what was it about Yuvraj Singh that made this writer stick his neck out at a time when he was still some way from cementing his place in the team. Simply stated, it was his ability to hold the middle-order together or provide the thrust at the finish. He may have slowed down a bit on the field after he suffered a knee injury some years ago but he can still deliver 10 economical overs of his own, thus giving Dhoni the luxury of going into a game with just four specialist bowlers.

“Of course, I am a great fan of Yuvraj Singh as he bats at No. 4. He can change the way he needs to bat according to the demand. And his bowling comes as a big asset, especially since we play with four bowlers and he does the job of the fifth bowler,” Dhoni said about the lynchpin when talking to the media before the team’s league game against the Netherlands in Delhi.

Indeed, his return to the collective consciousness of the nation’s cricket fans has not been easy but it has been worthwhile for Yuvraj Singh himself. Indeed, it is good to see him score runs, get wickets and put that extra effort in the fielding department also. But above all, it is great to see him enjoy his cricket all over again.

The  Hindi version of this  piece  first appeared in a leading  newspaper, Prabhat Khabar

For instance, Mahendra Dhoni’s captaincy – be it his decision (in conjuction with fellow selectors) to retain Suresh Raina in the XI ahead of Yusuf Pathan, consequent to Virender Sehwag’s return or the bowling changes that he rung in – was top notch. The team’s fielding – so often criticised – was rung above the usual.

Zaheer Khan’s response to his captain’s call for wickets or R Ashwin’s nerveless bowling in Powerplay, Sachin Tendulkar’s intensity at the start of the run-chase, Gautam Gambhir’s sheer will power to contribute to the team’s cause despite obvious sluggishness and Raina’s maturity during his match-winning stand with Yuvraj Singh are all more cases in point.

Yet, no team can be satisfied with the old philosophy that said ‘You are as good as your last performance.’ That has to be tweaked to the present times when a team is only as good as its preparation and its current performance.

Yes, it is time to move on – not just for the Indian team as it travels to Mohali but also for fans and critics. The nature of competition in the knockout stage is such that it severely punishes teams every time for playing below par. And the converse is not always true: sides are not often rewarded for raising the bar.

The biggest challenge for the Indian team, therefore, as it prepares to take on Pakistan in its next high-voltage game is to take its collective mind off that amazing effort against Australia and move on. If the squad lingers for long in the afterglow of a fine victory in Motera, its preparations for Mohali can be affected.

I remember how, in 1996, three days after an emotionally-charged game against Pakistan in Bangalore, India capitulated in the semifinal to Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta. A lot of reasons have been attributed to that loss but I have always suspected that the team was not able to recoup its emotional energy quickly enough.

Yet, I also recall how in the span of three days India beat Australia 2-0 in the best-of-three finals of the Commonwealth Bank Series in 2008. It tells me that the modern Indian teams have evolved and can handle the task of recharging the emotional batteries quite well.

The Indian Mahendra Singh Dhoni has baffled a few with his persistent backing of leg-spinner Piyush Chawla despite the young man leaking runs by the dozen in the games against England and Ireland and not being so economical either against the Netherlands. He has also stood up in defence of off-spinner Harbhajan Singh who has two wickets from four games.

Undoubtedly, he would endear himself to everyone if he offers such backing to each of his players. But as the leader of the group Dhoni may have chosen to use the stick with some like the two spinners who have got to bowl in the last three games and the carrot with others like S Sreesanth. And perhaps hunger as a bait for R Ashwin.

He says he is not bothered by the criticism but in the same breath reveals how criticism gets to him. “Frankly, I am not bothered by what others say. When I select a team, I try to look at it as how honest I am. Piyush needed a game more than Ashwin because of the kind of applause he has received from you people,” he told the media on the eve of the game against South Africa.

At the end of the match against Netherlands, I waited to see if any of my colleagues would ask a direct question about Harbhajan Singh’s inability to breach the defences of batsmen from Ireland and the Netherlands. Truth to tell, there was one question about Yuvraj Singh doing a better job than the spinners and Dhoni’s response was fascinating.

“Whatever happens, you cannot drop the spinners and say we will play extra batsmen. I thought over a period of time, our spinners have bowled well,” he said. Interestingly, he did not stop there but went on to talk about how it was important for the bowling unit to hunt in packs rather than put the onus on one bowler.

“The opposition is happy to just block Harbhajan Singh out and make it tough for him to get wickets. We cannot have silly point and short leg that are needed for him. I don’t want to have a forward short-leg in the group stage because I don’t want a player to get injured,” he said. “If the batsmen have a go at him, he can get wickets. If he is bowling well, they are going after Yuvraj and that is probably why he is getting wickets. You have hunt in packs and that is what is important.”

I wanted to ask a more direct question on Harbhajan Singh and when my turn came, I asked Dhoni if he was happy with the intensity and aggression that the off-spinner showed on the field in the World Cup. The captain preferred to ignore the bit about intensity and chose to speak about Harbhajan Singh’s aggression – or the lack of it.

“I think he reacts to aggressive cricket in a different way. If the opposition is not playing aggressive cricket, maybe he also lays down and doesn’t play that type of aggressive cricket (expected of him,” Dhoni said. “It won’t be the case as soon as you are playing some of the bigger sides who will look to go after him. I think as the tournament heats up, you will see a different Harbhajan Singh. May be a strong side or better opposition, you will see the best of Harbhajan Singh coming up.”

Whether we agree with his argument or not, we must grant it to the Indian captain that he has backed the two spinners so well. It is now up to them – for their own sake, and for the sake of their skipper and the Indian team itself – to deliver the goods rather than be seen to be using World Cup matches to fine-tune their skills.

As it heads into its contest with a familiar opposition, South Africa, we must also hope that the Indian batting unit will be able to give more authentic performances. The West Indies in the last league game and then the knockout await the team in the business end of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. It is time to show what we believe are the team’s true colours.

If it was Ireland in Bangalore on Sunday, it was the Netherlands that caused creased foreheads in the Indian camp at the Ferozshah Kotla here today. It was up to Yuvraj Singh (51 not out, balls, fours) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to share an unbeaten 52-run stand and steer India home with 13.3 overs to spare.

After a frenetic start in which Virender Sehwag (39, 26 balls, five fours, two sixes) and Sachin Tendulkar (27, 22 balls, six fours) scored at 9.2 runs an over, India lost its way. The openers gifted their wickets to left-arm spinner Pieter Seelaar while Yusuf Pathan, promoted to No. 3 to give him some time in the middle, offered a return catch after a brief flourish.

With the medium-paced Peter Borren hitting an excellent length unlike his new ball bowlers, Gautam Gambhir (28), who survived a run out chance when he had made just three runs, and Virat Kohli (12) did not last long.

For all that, it will be the Indian bowling that merits more discussion. The attack, especially Harbajan Singh and Piyush Chawla, brought themselves under the scanner as the Netherlands set the home team a190-run target. Neither Harbhajan nor leg-spinner Chawla could claim to be proud of his overall effort, beaten by the sluggish track and determined batsmen.

To be sure, Harbhajan’s bowling will come in for more scrutiny, given his failure to claim wickets in successive matches against Ireland and the Netherlands. He seems to have found a comfort level with restrictive bowling but the team will need its most experienced bowler to find his aggression sooner than later.

To be fair to Chawla, there was one great moment when he got a googly to snake past Scwarczyski’s jabbing blade and hit the wicket. He also picked up a second wicket in his final spell but had to sheepishly hide his face behind an arm when Alexei Kervezee managed to pull a rank long hop powerfully but straight to Harbhajan Singh near the mid-wicket boundary.

Zaheer Khan finished with the best figures for India with three for 20 while Nehra appeared to find his rhythm in bowling a full length. The fifth bowler’s combination of Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan played their part adequately enough, leaving the Indian thinktank to scratch its collective head in search of an answer to the specialist spin bowling conundrum facing it.

Though Mahendra Singh Dhoni said at the toss that Chawla was preferred to Ashwin because he needed more practice, it is a good wager that the leg-spinner played this game only because Munaf Patel reported unwell and because there was an overwhelming desire within the team an the team management to avoid a sameness to the attack.

As he walked into the dressing room for the supper break, Chawla said the two sixes hit by Peter Borren off his last two deliveries spoilt his figures. It was an indication of the defensive thinking that India’s key spinners have embraced. In fact, Yuvraj Singh appeared to have more confidence in his left-arm spin, varying his pace and trajectory unlike the specialists.

Ostensibly, the two teams had different agendas: India wanted an easy win while the Netherlands simply wanted to put India on the backfoot. In the end, the Dutch managed their objective as India huffed and puffed to take little more than the two points from the win. As it heads towards its final league games against South Africa and the West Indies, India left itself with work to do.

To begin with, Team India – which started with changing its training schedule to late afternoon – is hoping for an easy game in a change from the series of tight matches it was engaged in by England and Ireland while the Netherlands is looking to alter the run of huge defeats by the West Indies and South Africa and come across as more competitive.

The biggest change within Team India could be the return of left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra to fitness and the XI ahead of leg-spinner Piyush Chawla, who had forgettable outings against the two sides from the United Kingdom. With the game being played on the same track as the Canada-Kenya contest, India will return to the three seamers-one spinner bowling combination.

“The bowling department is showing signs of improvement. Ashish (Nehra) is coming back from an injury and we are trying to see whether the 3-1 combination or the 2-2 is ideal. Hopefully, we will have the best attack by the end of the league stage,” skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said, firmly indicating that the team would vigorously seek the right combination.

Of course, even if Dhoni would not be drawn into a debate about Harbhajan Singh’s poor returns from the first three games, the team will be backing the off-spinner to change his line of attack and come good. With R Ashwin waiting in the wings for a chance, the most experienced bowler in the Indian attack is under some pressure.

As for batting, it is unlikely that there will be any change in the top four, what with Dhoni conceding that Virat Kohli needed to bat either at No. 3 or No. 4 to maximise his potential. Of course, Dhoni also indicated that he would like Yusuf Pathan to get a longer stint in the middle as the team fine-tunes itself for the knockout stages.

If there was something that bucked the ‘change’ trend today, it was Dhoni’s acceptance yet again that the Indian fielding would not undergo any transformation, more so with the infusion of Suresh Raina in the XI being virtually ruled out. “A lot has been talked about our fielding and I don’t see a drastic improvement in our fielding,” he said.

As for the Netherlands, it is clearly looking to overcome the disappointing defeats by huge margins at the hands of the West Indies and South Africa. For that to happen, it will need its star batsman Ryan ten Doeschate to return to the kind of form that saw him dominate the England attack in Nagpur where he made a most impressive century.

The Dutch captain Peter Borren spoke about the team turning up a brave show against the home side but it is possible that the Netherlands can find the atmosphere quite electric. Undoubtedly, the presence of Delhi’s own Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli – and perhaps Nehra as well – will add extra zing to the fans thronging the ground tomorrow.

The Dutch, who have not played India in a World Cup game here, admitted that there was a sort tension in the ranks. They are really not used to such an atmosphere – they were surprised at the large media turnout at the pre-match briefing – but have indicated that they would love the challenge of taking on India at home.

And yes, it will not be out of place to mention that while the Indian and the Dutch teams continue their journey in the World Cup, this game will end Ferozshah Kotla’s tryst with the world’s biggest tournament. As if in unadulterated celebration, the terraces in the ground will shed the somnambulist countenance that was a constant in the three matches it has hosted so far.

Yes, indeed, change is in the air.

My focus is on the unadulterated joy caused by that genius answering to the name of V Anand whene he retained the World Chess Championship title with a fine victory over Veselin Topalov with black pieces in the 12th game in Sofia. For someone who endured a four day road trip to get to the match venue, he was simply the master.

I speak of the unbridled optimism when the Indian badminton men and women’s teams made it to the quarterfinals of the Thomas and Uber Cups in Kuala Lumpur. The fact that P Kashyap took a game off the legendary Taufiq Hidayat and that Saina Nehwal held her own in the face of the Korean onslaught on her team augured well for Indian badminton.

I speak of the hope that was sparked in our hearts that the hockey team had begun its arduous walk back to the top half of world rankings when it beat Australia in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament in Ipoh. It was a rare victory over a side from Down Under but that did not send me into a tizzy of ecstasy since the Australian squad was at best an experimental outfit.

Yet, there was a huge sense of disappointment that the Indian cricket team – which has the largest television viewership – caused by its inability to make it to the semifinals of the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies. For a side that was expected to be among the front-runners in the tournament, India stunned its followers with an early exit

A number of reasons have been put forth for India’s successive defeats to Australia, the West Indies and Sri Lanka. The biggest was the failure of the batsmen to come to grips with the challenge of playing on a bouncy track in Bridgetown against Australia and the West Indies or accelerate in the second half of its innings against Sri Lanka on a more comfortable pitch.

The selectors must take a large part of the blame for not giving the team management any choice as far as batting is concerned – Dinesh Karthik was the only one available and let us not forget he was on the squad mainly as a reserve wicket-keeper and not as a specialist batsman. It forced the team to play both Ravindra Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan as bits and pieces players.

It is not just with hindsight that I believe Piyush Chawla’s presence in the tour party was a luxury that the side could not afford. And then to have carried Vinay Kumar – and flown in Umesh Yadav as a replacement for the injured Praveen Kumar – without showing much faith in them suggested that the team management was not aligned with the thinking of the selectors,

Of course, the team erred in playing just two seam bowlers in Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra even on the bouncier tracks in Bridgetown. The ploy worked like magic against South Africa in the Beausejour Stadium at Gros Islet in St. Kitts. Mahendra Singh Dhoni challenged the South Africans with plenty of spin and reaped dividends.

Sadly, even after the defeat by Australia in the opening Group F game in Bridgetown, India persisted with the same plan instead of playing Vinay Kumar ahead of an extra spin bowling option. On a track that offered pace and bounce to the quicker bowler ready to bend his back, India did not have anyone with that quality.

But more than anything else, it was the much vaunted Indian batting line-up’s inability to cope with chin music in Bridgetown that let the team down. For all that, it is critical that we do not allow that one emotion called anger to surface. It is one thing to be disappointed with and critical of the batting performances but another thing to be angry with the side,

Perhaps the fact the matchless Anand won his fourth world title and gave the nation so much cheer about will temper some of the anger; may be the ‘revival’ of Indian hockey (and let me reiterate that I am not convinced that it is) will shift some of the negative focus from the Indian cricketers.  Yes, at least, some of us did not go berserk because some team won the Premiership.