MSD’s stock as captain has taken a serious knocking

So near yet so far’ is a cliché of course, but has a certain poignancy attached to it. It suggests earnestness of effort overwhelmed by hard luck. But when the same cliché is used frequently, it becomes repugnant to basic logic. India’s defeat in the second Test, as in the first, was narrow. At Adelaide, the margin of defeat was 48 runs, at Brisbane Australia won by four wickets. It is a moot point whether the result in the second Test not been different if India’s bowlers had 50-60 more runs to defend.

But as the sequence of such defeats (or inability to win from a vantage position) gets longer, the credit for fighting hard starts getting tainted; the valour begins to lose lustre and the cumulative effort starts looking very un-heroic, so to speak.To assess India’s performances on a broader canvas, apart from losing these two Tests are the defeats in England some months back and before that, to New Zealand and South Africa. In all these series’s there were strong opportunities to win that were squandered.

This kind of prodigality can be explained either by a jinx or by a failure to play tough cricket at the crux. Of course fortune plays a part in sport, as it does in life, but not beyond a degree. The influence of the paranormal in sport is the stuff of fiction books, nothing more. Just as it was robust performances, deep motivation and novel tactics that took India to the number Test spot four years ago, I venture it is poor performances (in all departments), hackneyed tactics and limp motivation rather than poor luck that have seen the side slump to number seven in the rankings.

This becomes more pronounced in tight situations, when the match is in the balance, when one decisive thrust — individual or collective — can win the day. But just does not seem to arrive. Instead, the effort becomes brittle.Consider the cricket played in this series yet. Over a fortnight, India have had only three really bad sessions out of 27, but that has cost them the two Tests. Just when it seemed that the match was sewed up in their favour, something cracks.

In Adelaide, the batting collapsed in the last session of the match after Kohli’s brilliance had taken the side so close to victory. In Brisbane, the bowlers failed to get the Aussie tail when a handsome first innings lead looked like. On Saturday, four wickets were lost in the first hour itself just when it seemed that a batting fightback was on the cards.
The argument that this is a new, young side lacking experience and should be viewed with patience has lost plausibility, in my opinion, a year back. Without exception, every team in the world today is in the process of rebuilding.

The current Australian team, for instance, is also flush with newcomers. For the second Test, they also did not have the services of their captain and best batsman, Michael Clarke. Moreover, they came into this series on the back of a 2-0 defeat against Pakistan, had the Phil Hughes tragedy to overcome.All said, they were highly vulnerable, but held their nerve and came good in crunch situations.

If anything, where players are concerned, India have had more stability that most other countries. But that does not appear to have helped them to win consistently.There have been several outstanding individual performances, only a very few collectively which — despite all the hoopla surrounding it — has diminished the pride of Indian cricket.Consequently, Dhoni’s stock as a captain has taken a serious knocking and quite a few players are skating on thin ice.

Redemption from this difficult situation cannot come from excuses or witch-hunts.For that, the desire and commitment of the players must find expression in the middle, not by strutting around as superstars with feet of clay outside of the ground. There are still two Tests for them to turn things around. But time is clearly running out.