A leak that needs a fix

A LEAK THAT NEEDS A FIX

                            By Utsav Chaudhary

The moment India entered South Africa last December, they had not lost any  series in 2013. It has been 40 days since and they have not won even a single match yet. In the process they have even lost the no.1 rankings in ODI cricket.

I, while travelling in a local bus, overheard two “experts” discussing about the current situation of the Indian team.

Expert 1: “304, 359, 304, 295, 350, 326…..”

Expert 2: “Why are you throwing these random numbers at me?”

E1: “211, 289, 263, 358, 280, 301…”

E2: “Okay, stop it, are these some bus numbers or what?”

E1: “292, 271 and thats it. These are the scores of the opposition teams in the last four ODI series against India. Can you believe that we are the number 1 team in the world?.”

E2: “We were the number 1 team and what is this Ishant Sharma doing in this team? He certainly can’t bowl at a pace other fast bowlers around the world bowl and can’t bowl a yorker in the death overs. All he does is bowl short, doesn’t get much bounce and gets hammered around the park. After that beating from Faulkner, I thought he would never return to this team again. But incredible India, I must say.”

E1: “Forget Ishant, have you ever seen Ravi Ashwin bowling well with the white ball ?

E2: “Yes, I clearly remember him destroyi—…Oh sorry that was the IPL.”

E1: “When I see Ashwin bowling in the test matches, I admire him as a bowler. I mean with the variety he has, he can fool any batsman in the world. No wonder he got to 100 wickets in tests faster than anyone else did in 80 years.”

E2: “And when it comes to bowling in ODIs, having too much variety in his arsenal hurts his statistics. When you are bowling on wickets that doesn’t support spin, try bowling on one spot and stop the flow of runs. He tries to bowl every delivery differently, hoping to fetch wickets and leaks runs instead.”

E1: “Speaking of leaks, what do you think should be India’s next move so as to curb its opponents? Clearly this giving away near 300 runs every time has to end.”

E2: “What India really need is a bowler who can reverse swing the ball during the death overs. With Bhuvaneshwar Kumar swinging the new ball both ways, his partner Mohammad Shami complements him by bowling share in-swingers at a fast pace. The third bowler has failed miserably for India, be it Ishant, Vinay Kumar or Mohit Sharma.”

E1: “Zaheer Khan can be the solution to this. With Bhuvi and Shami almost certain, Zak can play the role as a bowler for the death. We know how efficient he is at that point in an innings.”

E2: “Umesh Yadav also deserves more chances than being given to him at present and what does that guy Amit Mishra do? He might have created a record for serving the most number of water bottles in the field.”

E1: “Haha, forget Mishra in New Zealand right now, they have taken Stuart Binny there. Why not try him in place of Ashwin? Ashwin has only taken a single wicket in the last 5 matches, how much harm can Binny cause after that?”

E2: “ Ok so my stop is here, just pray that our team wins the series down under, after all no matter how much we criticise them, it is them winning a game that brings a smile to our face. Bye.”

In a cricket preaching country like ours, people are very aware of the problems our cricket team faces. They even have remedies to those problems as well. With the amount of cricket people of India are exposed to, these expert opinions of them do come in handy when you sit down and write about a particular topic related to cricket.

Expert 1 looks out of the window and sees water coming out of a pipeline by the side of the road and says, “Even this leak needs a fix.”