Saturday, January 13, 2007

Loss in South Africa a 'Team Effort' – Chappell

by Anand Ramachandran, who feels that the Indians truly Test cricket's patience.





Indian cricket team coach Greg Chappell has described the sound thrashing received at the hands of Graeme Smith's South Africans as a 'complete team effort' and said that every team member contributed his bit to the result.








team


Greg Chappell and Rahul Dravid have graciously declined to take all the credit for the debacle in South Africa, giving due credit to the combined efforts of the entire Indian team (not in picture)

“All the ingredients were there – scatterbrained batting, toothless bowling and miserable fielding. We were equally hopeless in all departments, and it took a collective effort to lose initiative in every pivotal moment of the series.”, he said, showing his flair for 'lateral thinking' and Edward-De-Bono gobbledygook.

“Sachin and Rahul led the way with that dead-bat, dead-brain session on the fourth day, Laxman and Zaheer contributed vital run-outs, the tail crumbled when it really mattered. Almost all the batsmen put their hands up and played dreadful cricket at some point during the series, and often when it truly made a big difference to the game. Jaffer chipped in with that awful pull shot in the second test, Sehwag was splendidly off-form throughout. ” he pointed out to a perplexed looking group of reporters.


“Only Sourav Ganguly, as usual, didn't contribute anything of significance to the debacle.” he said with practiced ease, and a sly smile.

“And though the bowlers in general were quite good, they really came to the party when South Africa really needed them to bowl badly. I thought Kumble's contribution by bowling that ineffective leg-stump line into the rough on the final day was particularly significant. Munaf Patel came into this match with an injury, and ran in and bowled as well as you could expect a half-fit bowler to do.” he continued inexplicably.

Captain Rahul Dravid was also of the opinion that the whole team worked well together to pull off an incredible defeat. “ We can take away a lot of positives from the tour. It's not very easy to lose a three test series after being one-nil up, and especially after being 150-odd for no loss on the first session of the decisive game, but I think we've managed very well. Not every team can do this consistently, and I think we can go back home believing that we've done something truly special and hard to match.”, he said, in his trademark voice that sounds like a bamboo flute with the bass turned all the way up.

When former captain Sourav Ganguly was asked for a comment, he simply said “I prefer to let my bat do the talking.” “Yay! Dada's going to be captain again!”, said his bat, dutifully.

“South Africa rules. Asian teams are useless. I can tolerate Makhaya Ntini as long as he keeps taking wickets.”, bleated Barry Richards, delighted at the whiteness of, among other things, his unusually large teeth.

“The western countries always act too high and mighty. Who do they think they are?”, said Sunil Gavaskar, unable to steer his thoughts away from his usual anti-west ranting.

For once, Wildlife Photographer S.U.Saravanakumar was speechless. “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . “ he said excitedly.

The general public was unavailable for comment.

16 comments:

GS said...

:) Welcome back!
But on a more serious note WTF is the coach doing?He is supposed to be fixing this.

Escape.... Great Escape said...

TO add to your article... noted physics professors have discovered the improbability drive everytime sehwag attempts the shot.

Smith said...

2 months? whiskey tango foxtrot?

Anonymous said...

let's not forget that kumble is a tall man.

priya krishnan said...

"all indians love cricket and really care abt it", she said..... mistakenly

Mahadevan said...

'Team effort' started even before the match commenced. Team management read the pitch correctly and opted for an injured Munawar Patel to a turning turbonator. A limping Munawar, reduced to one third of his pace with just one over in the second innings, played a marathon innings.

In the first innings, Sehwag at No.6 scored forty runs. Team management mathematically calculated that he would score 400 at No.1. There was a decimal error and he scored 4.

In the second innings, we opted for the swings of Srisant and Zahir Khan, to the turning balls of Sachin and Sehwag and accelerated South Africa's score - a result of Time and Velocity study. A deep study of Kumble's height and the potential of the pitch to assist the ball to rise was also made scientifically for Smith and Prince to score fast.

A great team effort, to be recorded in history.

GS said...

Flash News!
Top Indian cricketing officials announce plans to bring back Mohd. Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja into the Indian team for the upcoming World Cup.This follows the Cricket Board's conclusion that it is not possible to win the cup despite the morale boosting loss to SA.Ace former batsmen Dileep Vengsarkar under condition of anonymity said that the Board was desparately trying to contact Hansie Cronje as well.He also confirmed reports that Azharuddin and Jadeja were in Dubai preparing for the WC.

Anonymous said...

At last the Photografer got 'stumped'. But alas! only he's stumped..not the SA batsmen!!

shakuni said...

hahaha. well written anand.

Brand builder & Story teller said...

wonderful discovery, your blog!
(whilst i was searching for a story on air deccan)
not quite so wonderful - me stealing a photo from one of your entries.
how does one spell brwuaahahaha?

Anand Ramachandran said...

no problem. i filched it off the net anyway. how do you spell 'muhahahahaha'?

Anonymous said...

It was a collective team effort no doubt...."All the ingredients were there – scatterbrained batting, toothless bowling and miserable fielding" :) Lovely

kanch said...

wow!!...awesome writing :-)...but i am huge fan of dravid so couldn't really accept the dravid quotes. but had fun reading the rest of the blog ...:)

Anonymous said...

It is really wonderful on the part of the team management to distribute equal resposibility for all the team members.
Lets hope the team effort continues during the world cup and teams like kenya and bermuda benefit from the effort.

Brand builder & Story teller said...

Rest days?

Nandhu said...

jokkunnu sollittu adingappa!