Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Well put

Anice article by Sharda Ugra (full article here)

Being the best team in the world, the No. 1, is a due recognition of your recent results, but India have been there before. Truly great, epoch-defining cricket teams dominate worldwide. Not only compete hard but dominate, unconditionally. When the opposition is down, they punch their lights out; when they find themselves in jail, they make escaping a habit. Their performances and results do not warrant doubt. India has fielded tough, competitive, wonderful teams in the past. But to this day, India has never fielded a team that has dominated Test cricket. When we see one, we will not have to be told what is what. We will know.
Only when Kohli gets this will he be a captain to be remembered. He is a great already as a player but his captaincy is instinctively wrong. His dropping of Rahane in South Africa, not including Pujara in England and his persistence with Dhawan for overseas games are just some examples of his errors. I would not have a problem with the errors - everybody can make them. I have a problem with how they position this team ahead of the past without any results to back it up. Other teams were stronger in the past. So, on the evidence of the results India is poorer now than before. Actually as Ugra writes - thats not the point. If you are the best, we will know. You wont have to remind anybody (like Shastri keeps doing every press conference!)