Why do stock markets crash?
While there are so many experts around, one can still quite never know when the next one is around the corner. Sometimes there seem to be valid reasons for a plunging sensex line and sometimes it's just something fuzzy like ''market sentiment''.
Why does the Indian cricket batting crash?
While there are many theories, one can still never know when the next one will happen. Sometimes there seem to be valid reasons like green pitches, lethal quicks or a new mysterious talented spinner. Sometimes you think that all the batsmen are just falling like nine pins… a ''wicket-throwing sentiment''?
So one of the things that seems to be a given is the Indian team's imperative to crash every now and then for no apparent rhyme or reason. That way, nothing can really explain the humiliating 84 all down that India suffered at the hands of a depleted Kiwi attack in the first match of the triangular series in Sri Lanka on Tuesday.
Time for India to try out fresh faces
The pitch wasn't a green terror, there was no Shane Bond tearing away with all his might and it wasn't even a rookie team led by Suresh Raina. And yet we lost by 200 runs.
Once upon a time 210-220 was considered a good ODI score, and maybe even a decent Test score on certain pitches. Then if a team crashed in the range of 100 runs, not many eyebrows were raised.
But today at a time of toothless bowlers and run feasts, (Didn't India score 700 in a Test innings just last month in the very same country? Haven't two teams scored 400 in the same match twice?) such innings don't make much sense.
The Summer of 42
One innings that comes to mind is the infamous Summer of 42 in 1974. In the early seventies, India had won on both West Indies and English soil, so expectations were naturally high. But in the Lord's Test, following on, we were 42 all down. There was nothing much wrong with the pitch as England had scored 629 in the first innings.
It came as a shock to the Indian establishment and captain Ajit Wadekar was promptly retired. India also crashed to 76 all down in the Ahmedabad Test versus South Africa in 2008. Captain Anil Kumble also never led a complete series after that and retired in a matter of months.
Of course, MS Dhoni will still survive as captain despite the 84 all down. (Anyone remember the 74 all down versus Australia in a T20 match in 2008?)
We're not alone...
But if there are other teams that have a similar tendency to crash one need to look no further than Pakistan and the West Indies. The Windies are the only Top Test team in the current decade to have been bowled out for below 50 while the Windies also have the lowest ODI score (54) of the current decade from among the Top 8 teams, a dubious record they share with India.
Coverage: India in Sri Lanka
Pakistan’s low point of the decade was probably a Test match versus Australia on their favourite pitch Sharjah in 2002. They followed a 59 all down by a 53 all down in the second innings!
But the question is why doesn't the same thing happen to say South Africa and Australia? Are those teams more professional and more mentally tough? All of their low scores happen to be in the first half of the twentieth century.
Are India, Pakistan and West Indies unprofessional or mentally weak or are they simply flat track bullies? So much so that when the pitch shows even a bit of venom or unreadable bounce, they all fall like Sidhu’s bicycle stand?
Like a birthday, it comes once a year…
Interestingly, in the current decade (2000-10), India has been bowled out below 150 at least once every year! How is that for consistency? Moreover the ignominy has come under most of the captains: Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly (a regular occurrence then), Rahul Dravid and now MS Dhoni.
By that logic, one hopes that the next crash won’t come before 2011!
This is probably our worst beginning to any tri-series: A negative Net Run Rate of 4 after the very first match. We could well be eliminated in our match against Sri Lanka on Monday if the Indian team doesn’t pull up its socks.
If India can't get used to Dambulla, then the bad news is that all the matches are played there.
The good news is that there is no Dambulla in the 2011 World Cup.
