Winner and Losers ft. Parthiv Patel, Tim Paine and Peter Handscomb

Winner and Losers ft. Parthiv Patel, Tim Paine and Peter Handscomb

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BCCI

Amidst all the talks of “ elite honesty and establishing a new culture” Tim Paine led the team to possibly their happiest day since the Sandpapergate saga. The game, however, threw some lights on why it is good to have a long-term vision of playing a Test and not get blinded by first day pitch.

Winners

Parthiv Patel

January 2004. It was in Sydney that Parthiv Patel stood behind the stumps to have a word or two with Steve Waugh, who was playing his last international game. Nothing was easy for Parthiv, at least facing the toe-crushing yorkers of Aussie pacers. He had considerable problems while keeping to Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble as well. But there is one thing that he had shown since then, it is that he has never dropped his hat in the face of adversity. Who would otherwise open the innings immediately after keeping for over 100 overs? Patel did that in Chennai and more so, in an efficient manner. And now, the chance beckons for him to go ahead of the eight ball after continuous failures of Murali Vijay and KL Rahul. From the very look of it, Rahul looked under confident and his failure can be attributed to that aspect too. If he goes on to get chances, it will affect him mentally further and the time has come to send him back to the grind of the Ranji Trophy to gain the confidence back. Vijay’s non-performance seems more of a concern because he was unable to bring the very technique that gave him immense success in Australia last time. He is well past his prime and can be sacrificed to bring Mayank Agarwal to the team. But, if India decide to make one change then, Parthiv, still having that boyish charm, fits in snugly. 

Tim Paine

When Tim Paine made a comeback to the Test team in 2017 Ashes and was elevated to the captaincy role in 2018, the world was laughing at the Australian cricket. A player, who had only one 100+ plus score in First-class cricket, is the skipper of a team that took pride in being the most ruthless side in the world cricket. But, he was important in the context of Australian cricket’s resurgence and today was the day he showed, you can be nice yet be a ruthless captain. Australia played brilliant cricket right from the Day 1 and in between, when the chips were down, he stood tall to fend away the short ball barrage by the Indian pacers. Paine wasn’t seen as following the time-honoured Australian mores of blatant sledging to get going, rather, he bided his time like an old-fashioned indefatigable Aussie who did not give up a chip of a bail, while expecting what happened on the field to stay there. His banter with Virat Kohli may have triggered a lot of former cricketers to come out of the stray and make a comment after another, but it was rather a show of grit and an answer to them, who thought this was the weakest team of all. 

Losers

Indian team management

The combination of Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri has led India in 12 Tests outside Asia and the Windies and apart from the Trent Bridge and Adelaide, they have always gone with some random assessment of the pitch. Even in India’s Johannesburg win, they fielded Hardik Pandya who had to bowl only eight overs and yet Virat Kohli is not ready to accept that they have been making mistakes. While Nathan Lyon bagged a total of eight wickets and even a part-time spinner in the form of Hanuma Vihari picked a couple of wickets, India didn’t field a spinner despite having three of them in the dressing room. Ravichandran Ashwin bowled well in the first Test despite not being fully fit and scored 25 runs in a crucial 62-run stand with Cheteshwar Pujara from 127 for 6 to turn the Test around India's way. In his absence, India's tail started at No. 8. India could have gone for Bhuvneshwar Kumar to address that situation, but India decided to choose Umesh Yadav who kept releasing the pressure with easy scoring opportunities. A Ravindra Jadeja, who has always been relentless in his approach, could have been another option, but as things stand, it was India who lose because of the bad selection.

Peter Handscomb

Peter Handscomb has always been touted as a fine batsman in Australian circles because of his superb defence. His Ranchi resistance could well be remembered as one of the finest backs-to-the-wall innings in the difficult conditions, during which he spent as many as 210 overs on the field, absorbing a mountain of pressure. However, his spot was never assured and when experts question his tactics against James Anderson, he was eventually dropped from the team at the end of last year's Ashes Test in Adelaide. He did answer it some way or other, but the struggle has once again made way in this Test series. Generally, Handscomb’s high backlift allows him to stay back in the crease and put him in an ideal position to play hook shots confidently and then his weight transfer allows him to play horizontal bat shots, but this series is entirely different. In the Adelaide Test, he fell prey to a classic seamer from Mohammed Shami, who was pitching the ball up, but the one that dismissed Handscomb was a short one. He failed to counter short balls in this Test as well, which forced Shane Warne to ask for his head on Twitter. The time has come for Australia to alter his batting position at the earliest.

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