Another abject surrender

India drooped to another humiliating surrender and defeat ,the seventh successive test defeat on a foreign soil .It may not be surprising if it is going to be another 0-4 drubbing ,like last years devastating England tour. There are reports that Dhoni is not his usual self and is disinterested in test cricket. How can a captain make others believe he is disinterested ? He can do it only through his actions and words.Surely Dhoni is guilty of doing both .Else why should Dhoni talk about his retirement from test cricket in the middle of an on going series in a foreign soil ,that too especially when the team is doing badly.Dhoni's remarks about his leaving the test cricket format was obviously out of place . What ever I wrote in my last post ,after the 0-4 series loss to England  'What went wrong with Dhoni & co ' holds good ,for the Australian series also.It was once again a spineless performance,with no will to fight .All is not well with the Indian team .Rahul Dravid is reported to have said ,what is needed is inspiration ! What was he hinting at ?Who was not inspiring ,the leader of the team ?.It is a pity to hear these words from some one like Dravid,whom his team mates looked for inspiration sometime back.I think BCCI and the selectors were carried away by a home series win against west indies.After the defeat Dhoni said, " we need to score more runs and take more wickets " ! .To top it all ,Dhoni has been suspended for the Adelaide test for slow over rates.Dhoni admitted he was informed from time to time about the slow over rates .He was warned for the same offence last time in the test series against West indies. Being the second offence ICC has dished out an one test ban.Why are they not trying young guns like Ajinta Rahane,Rohit Sharma who are in the benches .What is disturbing is that there is not even a semblance of putting up a fight .It is not the question of defeat,that is so humiliating.But the way the Indian batsmen threw their hands up and surrendered like meek goats,that is hurting. World's two leading run getters are in our team,two aging war horses .Despite Tendulkar's best efforts to reach the milestone of scoring his hundredth ton,which is eluding him for some time,he showed his class and put up some fight against the Aussies . Except for Tendulkar and to some extent Virat Kohli,it was a pathetic show.

What should the BCCI do now ? Perhaps this could be the last overseas tour for the likes of Tendulkar,Dravid and Lakshman.Neither Team India  nor these reputed players can  bask in their past glory and reputation . These seniors wont 'be around for the next tour.Even in the current tour ,they are struggling to find glimpses of their old magic come alive. Age do catch up with every one .Where is the second line ? Why BCCI is not nurturing the second line ? Do we have  worthy replacements in the wings, for these retiring legends  ?What is National Cricket Academy doing ? Why did Kumble resign as NCA chairman ?Is overdose of T20 format killing test match skills and staying power of our batsmen, at the crease ? Do we need to have specialist players for each format of the game ?There is so much craze among our fellow country men about cricket in India.The kind of money in the BCCI coffers , the money earned by the players for endorsing different brands,the hype and media coverage given to cricket in India are the envy of sports person's  belonging to other disciplines.BCCI is the richest sporting body in India.Its financial clout has helped BCCI to flex its muscles in the international arena also. BCCI also gets tax exemptions,a favour not shown to many other sports bodies.Powerful politicians head BCCI and state cricket Associations . When the new sports minister Ajay Maken  wanted to introduce a new sports bill,the BCCI's clout in the cabinet, could ensure rejection of  the bill.Both BCCI and IOA could scuttle the bill.Because powerful politicians like Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, Farooq Abdullah, C.P. Joshi, and Vilasrao Deshmukh are involved in the administration of the game.They said the bill interfered in their functioning.Other sports federations are languishing for want of funds. I think it is time for the government to curb the lop sided promotion of cricket in India.Abinav Bindra could fetch India's first gold medal in 10 m rifle shooting in the Beijing Olympics only because of his own preparations.The Association has not helped him in any way.He had to arrange for his own coach .In one of the debates in parliament the former sports minister Mani Shankara Aiyar ,known for his blunt views said  "Cubans win 157 medals for every one core of their population, Chinese win about 3.5 medals for every crore of their population and India wins less than 0.5 medals for every core of its population." He also said the heads of the sporting federations in  India are not there to inculcate a sporting culture. It is true in the case of BCCI also.BCCI ,wake up before it is too late.

Gilly reveals ' True Colours'

The cricket world was taken aback by former Aussie stumper Gilly's comments on Tendulkar in his recently published book.Gilly has played a silly joke on Sachin.Gilly says Tendulkar is a bad sport and his testimony in the Harbajhan row was a joke.Ironically the book is titled 'True colours'.It has brough to light the true colours of Gilly,incidentaly.During the infamous Sydney row of Harbhajan singh,Gilly restrained from making any uncalled for comments unlike many of his team mates.He was praised by the Indian as well as Aussie media for keeping off the controversy.It appears now it was a deliberate move by Gilly,since he planned his retirement from First class cricket then.He did not air his views frankly then keeping his retirement in mind.Now to boost his book sales, he has published some spicy criticism on Tendulkar in his book.While on a winning streak how the Aussies behave with their opponents is well known the world over.But when they do it, it is said"The Aussie mentality is to play it hard".They never bother about niceties.Even at the sydney test, after the controversial victory, Anil Kumble was a silent spectator watching the Aussie's celebrating wildly waiting in the ground to greet the Aussies on their dubious victory.But in Gilly's words, they are great sports and Sachin is a bad sport.Aussies behaviour in the podium after the ICC champonship final,pushingMr.Sharad Pawar BCCI President and subsequent apology for their behaviour is also still fresh in the memory of Indians. At a time when the Aussies are touring India and India are one up in the Test series,these comments of Gilly would start fresh rows among the teams.Gilly's image in India has taken a nose dive from the high pedestal, he occupied in the minds of an average Indian cricket fan.It has been proved once again that great cricketers need not be good ambassodors of the game.