Youngistan crash to 200 run defeat.
Indias 200 run loss to New Zealand at Dambulla on 10th August 2010 in the ongoing tri series has to be considered as one of the most humiliating defeats ever in the history of one day internationals. From a statistical point of view the loss should hurt the team for two reasons, firstly for the margin of defeat and secondly for not being able to reach even the 100 mark which even minnows like Afghanistan back themsleves to do these days and that too against strong test playing nations.
However there is a third reason which should worry more than anything else and that is the quality of New Zealand team in general and the current one in particular. In general New Zealand have been considered one of the weakest teams in international cricket in the last two decades or so and this New Zealand team is further weakened by the absence of their regular skipper Daniel Vettori who has been performing the teams only specialist bowler cum specialist batsman role to perfection for the last 4-5 years. India lost to a team which had 6 unknown names in Elliott, Guptill, Hopkins, Ingram, Mc Kay and Williamson who between them have played only 91 one day internationals and while losing itself by the narrowest of margins is inexcusable, their 200 run loss has put a serious question mark on the so called Youngistan or Youngsters.
For some strange reason in the last 4-5 years our one day team has been packed with mediocre players and youngsters who have not proved their worth inspite of being persisted with. In the first place a mediocre player irrespective of the age is picked and persisted with and retained long enough in the team and inspite of that he still fails he is replaced by yet another mediocre player and that has been the case with youngsters as well as a mediocre youngster is replaced by yet another one. Nehra and Praveen Kumar though gave a decent account of themselves in yesterdays match have been persisted for too long inspite of having leaked runs in match and after and the same is withbatsman like Dinesh Karthik who for some strange reason finds himself in the team as a automatic choice in the absence of a senior player. One cannot understand the logic behind having a second wicketkeeper batsman in the team when we have a exceptional talent in skipper Dhoni who has been brilliant in both the departments of the game and known for his fitness.
Ravindra Jadeja who has been picked in the team as all rounder has failed miserably in either of the roles and inspiteof him being clobbered for sixes match after match but for some strange reasons he is persisted with. Abhimanyu Mithun who was picked for the test series against Sri Lanka as a bowler to his credit batted well in the test series, but hardly did anything with the ball to merit a place in the one day team. Barring yesterdays match so far Team India has not faced the heat of having these mediocre players in the playing eleven, because almost every match a senior player like Sachin, Dhoni, Sehwag or a YuvrajSingh used to bail out the team with a stellar performance but yesterdays failure of seniors have exposed how weak is Youngistan.
In a country like India regional considerations, personal likes and dislikes of skipper, team management, regional boards or selectors always come to play and if players are picked on this basis very soon India would have to concede the status of being among the best teams in the world, once senior players decide to call it quits or fail to perform.
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