Last night’s match between India and Pakistan was good. Ouch, It hurt but actually not much. The euphoria of these matches like in the last few decades are no longer there with sanity prevailing and everyone at home had no qualms switching over to HBO to watch “The Bucket list”. That was a good movie.

India’s loss to Pakistan yesterday was well on the cards. The Indian fast bowling attack in recent times is nothing short of being described as totally retarded.  Last night, the slow toddlers also failed and Harbhajan had a bad day and with that went the only saving grace.

Ishanth Sharma, the future stalwart of the Indian bowling attack reminds me of the good old days when cars were on carburetors and contact points for the ignition system. You would need a good 5 minutes to warm up the car on idle before you can even think of engaging it on gear and taking off. Now this is a bowler for the future in the current era of MPFI, CRDI engines and electronic controlled ignition systems.

Ishanth needs a good continuous spell of 5 overs at least before he can somewhat start getting a decent line and length. If the batsman takes him to the cleaners within that 5, he would need another 50 overs just for his brain to assimilate the information that he is actually a fast bowler and that he can use the whole width of the popping crease to create angles, change pace or come around the wicket for left-handers to negate his inability to swing both ways.

That makes him rubbish for all short formats of the game and leaves him in the hope of making it count in test cricket. You keep hearing about him from the commies on why criticism should not be meted out to him and that he is young and will learn with exposure.

Yeah. They are right. Except, is the International stage the place for anyone to learn the basics? What in the world is the domestic cricket circuit then there for? Horticulture?

Nehra can somewhat be spared but if you take into account his experience, he shouldn’t. There are not much options now available and that is his saving grace. R.P. Singh has been baffling with hot and cold and what has gone missing is that streak of street smartness that often got him back on track during a match.

Dhoni and the team management on the composition has actually been the biggest culprit. On flat, slow pitches in Sri Lanka, they opted for three fast bowlers in rubbish form and barely scrapped through. Yesterday, on a similar type of pitch in South Africa, they leave out Amit Mishra, a quality leggie.

I hope now for the future they would

• Drop one of the fast bowlers preferably ishanth or draw straws. They are all the same.
• Bring in Mishra. For google’s sake, he bats way better than R.P. or Ishanth. He has the capability to get 10 decent overs out. Besides, an attack with 2 fast bowlers, 2 quality spinners and a pie chucker makes a balanced diet.
• Don’t mess with Raina and his batting position. Unlike Dhoni, he has the balls to lay it thick and thin in the number 3 position. In flat sub-continental wickets, you could watch Dhoni not have the courage to walk in at number 3 when the first wicket goes down with the new ball. Considering he is now making a good career prodding around and stealing runs rather than shoveling his way, it should have been his stable position. No, not Dhoni. He will run away from the new ball whether it swings or not and in South Africa, there are no marks for even guessing.
• Give Abhishek Nayar a few games. At least, he doesn’t wear hideous sun glasses.

300 could have been chased on that track and they nearly pulled it off as against what the scorecard margins suggest. Virat made a rash mistake and I pray not to hear any sound bytes in the media on “That’s how I play and that is my natural game” a la Rohit Sharma. I would have to pull out the chaos of the pineapple campaign from the closet again. Virat comes across as a sensible kid and hope he puts this in his bucket list.

Rahul Dravid was frankly disappointing. While this might sound harsh, it has to be asked what exactly  is the concept of the role of a well-set batsman.

He took his time to get set at the start and that was perfect. Mid-way and at the closing stages, the run-rate was going up and the need of the hour was to take calculated risks mixed with risk-free cricket to be in line of striking distance of the required rate.

A new batsman walks in and therefore logically the well-set batsmen who is seeing the ball well takes the role of those calculated risky scoring shots.

But no, not Dravid. He had to leave that to the new inexperienced batsmen while he continued prodding.

I miss V.V.S. Laxman.

Back to the fast bowlers, Gary was right. They should indeed ‘go solo’.

Wankers, all of them.