<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">var server = '203.197.64.235'; var sitepage = "www.timesofindia.com/india/index.html"; var position ="Bottom1"; if (! (RN)) { var RN = new String (Math.random()); var RNS = RN.substring (2, 11); } var oas='http://' + server + '/RealMedia/ads/'; var oaspage= sitepage + '/1' + RNS + '@' + position; //the belladpart starts here function lrTrim(thestring) { thestring = thestring.replace(/^\s*(.*)/, "$1"); thestring = thestring.replace(/(.*?)\s*$/, "$1"); return thestring; } var xyz=0; var sss = lrTrim(bellyad.innerText).split(/^/m); strpart = new Array(sss.length); for (i=0;i<sss.length;i++) iflrtrimsssi.length=""> 60) { strpart[xyz] = lrTrim(sss[i]); xyz = xyz+1; } } if(xyz > 1) var xcounter=1; else var xcounter=0; var ifirstsub = bellyad.innerHTML.indexOf(lrTrim(strpart[xcounter]).substring(0,30)); if (ifirstsub == -1) ifirstsub=bellyad.innerHTML.lastIndexOf(lrTrim(strpart[0]).substring(strpart[0].length-15,strpart[0].length)); var sfirst = bellyad.innerHTML.substring(0,ifirstsub); var sSecond = bellyad.innerHTML.substring(sfirst.length , bellyad.innerHTML.length); if (doweshowbellyad==1) bellyad.innerHTML = sfirst + '<a href="' + oas + 'click_nx.ads/'+ oaspage + '" target="_top"><img align="right" vspace="10" hspace="10" src="' + oas + 'adstream_nx.ads/' + oaspage + '" border="0" alt="Cliquez ici !" /></a>' + sSecond;</sss.length;i++)></script><br />With the country expecting a win in the Mumbai Test, Team India has gone to town saying they will play for pride!<br /><br />After making a mess of saving the series you would have thought that a saving grace win would have been targeted by the Indians.<br /><br />Whenever a team says they are playing for pride they will go on to put up a lousy show and lose the match.
The England team of the nineties used to play for pride and always lost. <br /><br />Victory is all there is to look for in a competitive situation. Anything else is a sign of weakness. It shows that you don’t have the courage to get set for fisticuffs.<br /><br />It is the team that aggressively targets their opposition and goes all out to force a win can do well. From the first Test to the last, that is the psyched-up attitude that matters.<br /><br />From Rahul Dravid to the rest of the squad, the loss of the series should have galvanised them to a do-or-die effort. But that has not been the case. It has been business as usual for them. The team has practised in the same old manner, gone through the same old motions and will come into the Test match with no desire to stand up and be counted.<br /><br />Have they no stomach for a contest?<br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />They have not got together to build up team morale and boost their desire to make a united stand against the Australians. No harsh words have been directed at the opposition, no decent understanding of the reasons for the series loss has been worked out. Can they leverage their position, in this scenario, and turn it to their advantage?<br /><br />Considering that in the event of a train crash the Railway Minister is asked to resign by the opposition, no effort has been made by the powers-that-be to logically and rationally target the people responsible for losing the series in India after 35 years. One minister replaces another, and yet no one says the railway system will fall apart. Why the same can’t be done by India in cricket. <br /><br />Replace the seniors and put the reigns of the country in a youngster’s hands. That will set the fire under everybody’s collective asses.<br /><br />There are precedents for this. A South Africa, falling apart after the Hansie Cronje bribery scandal and Shaun Pollock not being able to galvanise the side, replaced him with a totally inexperienced player, a youngster who had not proved himself at the international scene at all.<br /><br />Yet Graeme Smith, present skipper of the Proteas, has led the South Africans from the front and has got respect from his team as well as the world to show for it. He has put the gumption, the competitive edge back into the side.<br /><br />India can take a leaflet out of the Aussies'' book, who have said that only a win will do even after taking the series. Period. Anything short of that and the Aussie players will be pulled up for shoddy work<br /><br />Aussie skipper for first three Tests Adam Gilchrist has said the series may have been won but the last Test is yet to play out and that the squad has to fire on all cylinders.<br /><br />The only positive thing that India have done is change four players, though two changes have been forced through injury to skipper Sourav Ganguly and pacer Irfan Pathan.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the intention of the selectors was to send a message and they have been successful in doing that - ''either you perform or you perish on the international level’.<br /><br />Yuvraj Singh, Akash Chopra and Parthiv Patel have paid the price of not getting their basics right.<br /><br />There is also VVS Laxman, who has done nothing of note in the present season to justify his place in the side. He has been retained and that is not a good thing for the team. The youngsters have been punished for loose play but the seniors have got off scot-free.<br /><br />This is another backward step that will come to haunt India.<br /><br />The defeat has been blamed on the tyros and that is not really true. What were the seniors doing in the meanwhile?<br /><br />New beginnings are called for, but Team India is not looking into the future, it is looking back over its shoulders. <br /><br />It is bound to repeat the same ill-history.<br /></div> </div>
