Humiliation for India once more as England win even the third test by an innings and 242 runs. The current India-England series looks more like an Australia-Bangladesh series of the last decade. The India-England series is rather inflicting mental pain and trauma to the loyal Indian fans like me who are in no position to watch India getting beaten and battered everyday by the English. Even though its just a game but the way Indian tam surrendered and lost cannot be ignored.
India had their moments in the first and the second tests but the third test was worse where India did not look convincing in even a single session. Eyes hurt when at Lords India allowed Matt Prior and co to pile on the runs when India had them struggling at 107-6 with a chance to win the test. Depression struck when India surrendered and collapsed from 267-4 to 288 all out in the 2nd test. The chance to push England out of the match was lost and instead India themselves were put under pressure. New lows were hit when in the 2nd test England scored like it was a one day match and notched up 500+ runs in just about a day and a quarter. And the final trauma was given in the 3rd test where India put every foot wrong. India scored only 224 on a normal pitch and allowed England to score 700+ runs to be stripped of their reputation once more. In the midst of all this the fans suffered.
There were mostly 2 scenes that the fans saw in the India-England series. Cheers from the crowd when England hit fours after fours with players scoring hundreds and double hundreds and almost triple hundreds. The other one was the cheers from the crowd whenever Indian wickets fell in a heap. Indian batsmen scored 0's and 1's and 10's while the English bowlers bettered their averages and strike rates. Some took hat-tricks while some cherished their 5 wicket hauls. The Indian fans had little to cheer with just 2 hundreds from Rahul Dravid that too when it was clear India will lose while the lone 5 wicket haul from Praveen came in not so happy conditions. The fans never felt like switching their televisions on as it always showed India's plight. It brought back memories of 1990's when on a tour to Australia, I used to switch on the TV at 6 am only to find India struggling at 65-5 or Australia piling on the runs. The Indian fans suffered a betrayal from the Indian team and the long waits for this big series proved futile as Indian fans get ready for probably more mental pain starting this Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment