Friday, May 26, 2006

Sir Dravid through a harsh patch


Hi!
Sir Dravid,who is the Indian captain and also a very important batsman for his side is not having the best times of his career nowadays.He has been an architect of the Indian innings on many occassions and many times has taken India to victory single-Handedly.
Let us take the example of the South African tour of India in November,2005.Sir Dravid couldn't do much with the bat in the 1st,2nd and the 4th match.South Africa were leading the series 2-1.There was only 1 match to go.India were 7th in the ICC ODI Ranking.Improvement of their ranking was largely dependant on the result of the last match.In the last match,South Africa were put on to bat by The Indian Captain(Sir Dravid).South Africa set a target of 222 for the hosts.It looked an easy target and it seemed that India would take away the series by winning the last match,but the South African bowlers had other ideas.Ntini struck early and got Gambhir's wicket.Soon after Sehwag also fell to Pollock.At 46-2,Sir Dravid walked in.As he was trying to build the Indian innings,South African bowlers kept the pressure on.Tendulkar also soon got out.The score was 83-3.But Sir Dravid was not effected by such frequent falling of wickets.He scored 78* runs and was named the man of the match.It was due to his efforts that India won the 5th ODI and were able to draw the series.
Such an effort was made by him in the 1st match against the West Indies that was played at Jamaica on 18th May,2006.India were set a target of 252 by the West Indies and they had only 45 overs to reach the target.Chris Gayle scored a century in the West Indian innings and it was due to his innings that Windies were able to reach a score of 251.He scored 123.India lost Sehwag 0n 56.On 86-3 in 17.4 overs the target looked impossible for India,but it was again Sir Dravid who took India to victory and was named the man of the match for his brilliant innings of 105 of just 102 deliveries.
Even at very difficult situations,he has always been able to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.He has been a very important batsman for the Indian cricket team in both the versions of the game since long.
But now he has not been performing very well in the 2nd,3rd and 4th ODIs againdst the West Indies.India have already lost the series.I hope he performs well in the 5th ODI as well as the test series against the West Indies because if he doesn't play well even in the test series against the Windies,then India's defeat in the test series will be unavoidable.
*not out