April 2nd and that shot must seem like a world away for MS Dhoni these days. Though given how calm and collected he appears to be, the Indian skipper is probably good at ignoring the excessive media bashing around the team's recent performances. The old adage that a captain is only as good as his team has been driven home like never before and its amazing what a difference a span of six months can do. The XI that took the field in the final one-dayer against England had just four players in common with the XI that became world champions in Mumbai on April 2nd. Given the masses of injuries both during the Test series and the one-day leg, and the collective loss of form/confidence of several players (Dravid and Praveen Kumar being the main exceptions), it would have actually been near miraculous if India had managed to salvage anything from the tour after the loss in the second Test match at Trent Bridge against a very efficient England side on top of their game. And as this fan says, its not fair to take credit away from the Pommies simply because they were facing weakened opposition. You can only play against the team put up on the field and they did that very effectively, crushing the Indians at every opportunity as a good team does. But more on them and their future in a later piece.
For starters, if some of the younger kids in the squads are feeling depressed by the media bashing at how bad they are and how bad this team has become overnight (Suresh Raina comes to mind as the scapegoat here), they could do worse than read this piece by Sidharth Monga as good context. Public memory these days seems to be about the same length of time as the next T20 game and perspective is made conspicuous by its scarcity. The previous line is also probably the closest that perspective and T20 have come in the last few months of media coverage. If many "pundits" had it their way, all India's recent problems would be down to just the IPL and the Champions League, which in my opinion is a gross oversimplification. Granted that fatigue and injury problems haven't been helped by the bloated schedule that the IPL in particular causes, but a lot of that is also down to individual work ethics that players have. Fitness and conditioning have always been weak points for India's players and nothing much has changed in that direction. At least bowlers like Zaheer and Harbhajan have some excuses given that greater workloads are always likely to take a toll on them more easily. Cases like Sehwag and Yuvraj though are much more concerning especially given that Dravid who's much older also played the entire IPL and the West Indies tour after and still managed to be (in more ways than one) the lone batsman standing through the England tour. Its the professionalism and mental strength of Dravid's generation that the team will miss the most when he and Tendulkar call it a day finally and if there is one thing that the younger lot can learn from them, its the true meaning of the word professional. Talent wise, India still has an abundance (especially in the batting department) but truly what chaps like Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Raina, Pujara etc need for them to be able to make the leap to the next grade and be consistent there is imbibing the work ethic and attitude that (especially) Dravid and Kumble showed throughout their careers.
The bowling of course is another matter and much more of a concern. The only thing common to the top performers is the frequency with which they get injured as the list of highest wicket takers in ODIs in the last two years shows. The top The overdependence on Zaheer, especially against top quality opposition is really dangerous for the team (as was proven in England) Sreesanth and RP Singh will hopefully be sent back to domestic cricket for a good while and Praveen Kumar for all his skill and attitude is still not someone you would want to call your best bowler. That leaves Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel as the seam bowling hopes and if India can get the consistent best out of either of them or Irfan Pathan, they will go at least some way to solving their problems though bench strength will continue to be an issue. Spin bowling is equally an issue and while Harbhajan does need to rediscover himself, dropping him from the one-day side was a strange move if the idea was to challenge him on his Test match abilities (which going by the list of Test wicket-takers wasn't really a crisis). The selectors also need to show more confidence in Ashwin and Ojha who've performed capably each time they've been given a decent opportunity. At least the spin bowling bench strength seems stabler than seam bowling, though seems would be the operative word here. Building this bench strength and putting together a new team that can make the climb back to the top of the cricketing sine curve will be Fletcher's biggest test and determine Dhoni's legacy.
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