India look to salvage some pride in the ODIs

Team India look to start afresh for limited overs challenge after 0-4 drubbing in the Test series

Team India are trying hard to put behind the 0-4 loss and setting their sights on the forthcoming limited overs series which kicks off with the Twenty20 international against England at Manchester on August 31.

Before that game, there are two practice games (vs Sussex at Hove on Thursday and vs Kent at Canterbury the next day). The team has a new manager in former Test spinner Shivlal Yadav, who takes over from Anirudh Choudhary.


Indian players walk off after play is delayed due to floodlight failure on
Day Three of the third Test at Edgbaston. Pic/Getty Images

"Today is my first day as manager here. With the grace of God, I hope things go well," said Yadav, who managed the team on the 2003-04 tour to Australia where India drew 1-1 against Steve Waugh's army.

"The 0-4 defeat was very, very disappointing, but we must look at the next step. The next step for us is to prove ourselves in the one-day series," said a squad member yesterday.
Touche!

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India went into the Test series against England with a decent record: They were last beaten in a Test series here in 1996.

India have not fared poorly in one-day cricket here too. In 2002, Ganguly's men clinched the Natwest Series and in 2007, Rahul Dravid's team lost the seven-match series 3-4.

So going by past records, Indian fans can hope for some relief. And yes, India are the reigning World champions.

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Geoff Boycott is never short of a different view. The batting great said on BBC that while it was great to see his country doing well and winning convincingly, he would have liked to see England playing Monty Panesar, the left-arm spinner. Boycott felt India would have collapsed quicker if Panesar was around.

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Shane Warne was hot and spicy when it came to writing about the Indian Premier League's influence on Indian players. Warne, a Rajasthan Royals man wrote in The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

He wrote: "It is a real concern that Indian players are putting the IPL ahead of Test cricket. They miss tours to the West Indies and Tests against England, but are all happy to play in the IPL." It is not difficult to realise which player he is referring to here and it's not a task to understand who he points to, here too: "Certain individuals have taken the easy option to miss a Test match when they are not 100 per cent. They have just picked and chosen when to play for their country, which has upset balance and spirit of the team. Those players know who they are."

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While everyone's having a go at the Indian team, how can the highly opinionated Nasser Hussain miss out? "Nothing should get in the way of the fact they have been absolutely abysmal. They are without doubt one of the poorest teams I can remember touring England either as a player or since I retired," the former England captain wrote in the Daily Mail.

Hussain's memory will not ditch him. His team couldn't win in India during the 2001-02 Test series despite his tactics to check the flow of Indian runs. And though Sourav Ganguly's Team India lost the final game of the ODI series in Mumbai, the series was not won by Hussain's England. It ended 3-3.

A few months later, England lost the 2002 Natwest Series under Hussain's captaincy. Remember Ganguly waving his shirt at Lord's?

A splendid win at Leeds followed by a draw at the Oval ensured England didn't win the home Test series too. Scoreline: 1-1. In the 2003 World Cup game at Durban, Hussain's gang was swung out by Ashish Nehra's six-wicket burst.