The Great WhiteWash

2011 has been by far the most eventful year in the history of Indian Cricket.We were crowned the World Champions in front of a jam packed crowd at Wankhede stadium. Who can ever forget the picture of

World Champion-India

Dhoni swivelling his bat after completing the game by a towering six over long off. This was a nice tribute or a gift to the Little Master(for he has given 21 years to Indian Cricket, truly remarkable!!). From the highs of the World Cup win, Indian moved on to England with their confidence sky high, where another test awaited them. This was the place where the real cricket was to be played thats "Test Cricket". Moreover, it was far from home and in a completely hostile conditions. They were facing one of the best Test Cricket team though ranked lower than India(for we were the No. 1 test team), still they were a team to beat on their home soil. It was the fight for the No.1 spot in Test cricket. English were fresh from their Ashes triumph in Australia. They even had beaten the Srilankans, though not convincingly but enough to warm them up for the upcoming assignment.

What was our preparation?

We were still basking in the glory of having conqured the world by winning the most coveted cup. Rather, then playing tests, players were rushed to appear in the all important IPL. IPL, no doubt never helped them in getting  match fit for the test matches ahead(it never could) but yes it aggravated the niggles that our players had picked up during the World Cup. As a result, couple of our senior pros could not make it the WI. WI series was important for it provided the best match practice ahead of the Pataudi tropy. Even if that were not enough, BCCI did not ask for more than one practice matches owing to busy schedule.We had a lone practice match to acclimatize to the foreign conditions of English summer and to decide our playing eleven.

This series was projected as the series that was meant for Tendkular to complete his 100th century. I had really hoped that Tendulkar did score the 100th ton in the very 1st match test itelf for then he would not had the pressure or nerves in the matches ahead. This would have helped him to unleash himself against the English attack. This never happened, as a result Tenkulkar was not at his best, bogged down by expectations. We had already lost Viru(thanks to IPL), Gambhir was short of match practice and to make matter worse, Zaheer lasted only a couple of overs.

How we fared?

The dejected look on the faces of Indian players after the
series loss

How we fared??..It would be too modest to say that how we fared when we were thrashed completely. Losing each and every test more comprehensibly. As Boycott pointed out .."Indians played like Bangladesh". Indians can present an alibi stating that they never had the full strength team at their disposal but so did the English. They lost their "run machine", Trott and then their strike bowler, Tremlet. The only difference was that, they had the bench strength and we did not have any. We had a makeshift opener in Mukund who showed some spirit but could not last long. Gambhir never did get going. Tendulkar seemed too impatient for his 100th ton. Very,Very Special Laxman could not do any thing special this time as he found new ways to get out. Short ball came gain to haunt Raina. Dhoni was never comfortable against the moving ball. Coming to the balling department, except for PK none of the bowlers were effective or penetrative against the English.

The Silver Lining

"The Wall" stood tall

Though the team as a whole failed miserably against the disciplined English. There were a couple of players who performed extraordinarily. The first one was no doubt, the Man of Series, Dravid. He scored 3 centuries and kept the English attack at bay for major part of his innings. Unfortunately, no other player could replicate that. The next one was Praveen Kumar(aka PK). He bowled his heart out and troubled almost all the English batsmen. Sadly, he had no support at the other end. Though he  had to bowl a large quantum of overs, it did not dampen his spirits. When he came on to bat, he thwarted the English attack in his own style.There were a couple of good innings played by Dhoni and Tendulkar as well.

PK..really 'Made it Large'

After this drubbing, India has lost its numero uno status and slipped to 3rd spot. Hopefully, we take cue from this debacle and donot repeat this in the coming tours. 

This series was rightly labelled "the Great White Wash" for India lost 0-4.