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A question of desire

The next three days (if the game lasts that long) at Edgbaston and the fourth Test at the Oval will be a severe test of the resolve that this Indian team has and more importantly, whether they have the desire to fightback for individual and team pride. As Kumble says (in this piece from Sharda Ugra) - "At this level, the talent is more or less the same. It is the desire that makes a difference. You have to tell yourself that out of the four bowlers, you want to become the No.1 that the captain turns to. How you want to go up the ranks is up to you." He was talking about just the bowlers, but its equally true of the batsman too. And particularly for the younger Indian players like Gambhir, Raina, Ishant, Praveen, Mishra and Sreesanth this series had represented an opportunity to do just that, i.e. show that they are the future #1s. For the older men, its a test of how long they want to keep going and whether they have reached the end of their fount of desire. At the end of the day, if each player in the team shows the determination to be the best they can (as Cook, Bell, Prior, Broad, and Bresnan have all done) and to be #1 then the team reaches there automatically.


The series is pretty much decided now, but how the Indians face up to this test will hold much fascination for me over the next week or so.

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