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Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Indians- Do we lack the killer instinct?

Are Indians basically soft by nature and is that an impediment to achieving our goals?
The ongoing second cricket  test match between India and New Zealand is just a case in point. We had a commanding 246 runs lead after the first innings. Then brought N.Z to the knees with 94 for 5. Just when people were talking about the post match ceremony, India took the foot off the gas pedal. Not taking away any credit from Brendon Mcullum and Watling but in their 352 runs partnership, one could see a listless Indian team with a pedestrian approach and negative bowling line.. Brendon Mcullum went on to score 302 runs and N.Z declared with a lead of 434 runs. India, playing under tremendous pressure became 10 for 2 and should have been 31 for 3 had the Umpire not goofed in Giving Kohli not out. It could well have been curtains for India had it not been for what turned out to be a brilliant unbeaten century by Kohli. What should have been an easy win for us turned out as India trying to save the match with their backs to the wall.


Is it that our culture and tradition is coming in the way to annihilate the opposition? This takes me back down the memory lane to 1974 U.S Open Tennis. Vijay Amrithraj was to play Ken Rosewall in the quarter finals. Before the match, Vijay was interviewed and was asked what he feels about the prospects of the match. His reply was " It is an honour and privilege  to play against the great Rosewall and that's all am thinking about now". It is nice to feel like that but the attitude was a give-away. Sure enough, Vijay lost the match. When Rosewall met Jimmy Conners in the finals of the same U.S Open, to the same question to Conners, he replied " anyone standing on the other side of the net is my enemy and i shall finish him off ". So he did. Conners thrashed Rosewall 6-1, 6-0, 6-1. This essentially sums up the attitude of us and the others.

In the other cricket series going on now between Australia and South Africa, one can see how Mitchell Johnson and Australia literally pulverized the Springboks. They wait for the door to open an inch and then drive the wedge and push it ajar. That requires an attitude and self belief which we sadly seem to lack. The present lot of Indian cricketers like Kohli, Jadeja, Dhawan, Raina etc... may be lot better in being brash compared to the earlier generation of cricketers but we just don't have that little something extra to finish off the opposition when they are virtually down and out.

It is this attitude and the will to win against all odds that will make a Team a Champion. We are quite some way off from achieving that slot. One only hopes that this younger generation of cricketers will find their mojo and take us to the top.


2 comments:

Arch said...

rightly said!!! I feel in general, we Indians always do the hard work and earn our place in various fields but then in the end we don't seem to have the self-confidence that we are good enough to finish the job!!!

Unknown said...

The term 'Killer Instinct' is overused. When India won the T20 and ICC World Cup they were good, and suddenly they don't have the killer instinct ? Rubbish...it all boils down to skills in test match cricket ...it is merely a combination of bad captaincy and poor bowling. They would have won if they had a more skillful test match captain to start with, MSD is a decent one-day captain who likes to dry up runs for the opposition, but just doesn't think in terms of getting wickets, and he will not change as well. That's his nature, got to look at a new test match captain if they want better results.