Avoid getting buried

Ever since India won the ICC World T-20 in June, 2024, which ended more than a decade wait for an ICC Trophy, the second half of the year proved to be full of calamities.

Firstly our team lost an ODI series against Sri Lanka. The next was the horrid loss of the Test series whitewash against a depleted New Zealand team, which virtually sealed our smooth passage to play the WTC summit clash @ Lords.

Despite the 3-0 whitewash by New Zealand, the cricket fans were hoping for a turnaround Down Under. Yes, it did materialise under the able captaincy of Jasprit Bumrah. Thanks to his heroics with the ball and timely knock of KL Rahul, Jaiswal & Kohli during the second innings, we won the Perth Test by a huge margin. Though we felt that the team would keep up its tempo, the return of our Captain Rohit Sharma disturbed the team composition and we went on to lose the Adelaide test, mainly due to the failures of our top ordr batsmen, especially our captain and Virat Kohli, both of whom proved to be sitting ducks for Australian pacemen.

Still Bumrah was battling like a lone warrior till the Sydney Test, where our team sorely missed him during the second innings of Australia. Now that everything is done, dusted and buried, it is up to the selectors to forget their zonal policies and select only consistently performing players, lest the team be buried under six phantom deep.

Vinay Mahadevan,

Al Nahada, Dubai