The Down Under tour

Like millions of fellow Indians I looked forward to our Indian cricket team's tour of Australia. I made myself to believe the media stories and articles that we have a real chance this time. Our aging mighty stalwarts will take the Australian bull by the horns and will tame the raucous beast. I was skeptical of the similar stories during the England tour; somehow my sixth sense told me that it will end badly in England. But in Down Under I expected it to be otherwise. And as it happened, history repeated itself and we ended up with many similarities between England series and this series in Down Under.

1. In both the series until the last day of the first test, it was more or less even. And afterwards it was a steep downhill for Indian team.
2. Sachin's hundred was expected with each innings he played and it never happened (poor Sachin, I want him to score that hundredth hundred badly mainly because it will give him some peace of mind for the rest of his life. And Sachin, do not ever think of retiring with out that hundred even if it means retiring at the age of 45. Alternately BCCI can invite Bangladesh for a test tour and we will send you as opener. The bottom line is that the rest of your/our life with out this hundred is not worth it.)
3. It’s a complete white wash in both the test series. And as I write this, our team is trying hard to not to reach the finals of the triangular one day tournament. The first of the finals is in Gabba and there is no way our team can win a game on the bouncy pitch there. So what's the point in trying to reach the finals itself?

A small note about the bowling in the series down under: After the end of the first test, Dhoni said that we need to find a way to get the tail out quickly. So in the second and subsequent tests our attentive bowlers have made a master plan, they bowled so cleverly that the tail does not even has to come to bat.

And what can I say about the batting? Each time I woke up at midnight (with an alarm and at the grave risk of waking up my 1 year old son, I live in CET time zone) only to watch that all the batsmen have decided that it is best to either sit in the pavilion or standing on the ground fielding. It seemed like too much work to concentrate, flex your muscles a little bit and hit the cricket ball. They all have come to down under for a nice vacation with wives and what a pity that all other Indians are thinking that they have come to win some cricket matches.

And now they write about rifts and the lack of unity among the Indian seniors. Probably it is the wives who started the fight first and then the players themselves. But in any case there is too much money involved, every one wants a piece of it and of course the big brother (called BCCI) will force them to patch up.

What next? In 1 month's time there is IPL 5 and afterwards a T20 world cup. Once the IPL is underway, every one will quickly forget this forgettable tour of down under. The next away series is only in 2013 and do I need to remind every one again that history repeats itself?