World cricket is swinging like a pendulum

After India's World Cup victory earlier this year, world cricket has been swinging like a pendulum. First, England thrashed us 4-0 in Tests. Then we thrashed them 5-0 in ODIs.

The last 19 combined Tests and ODIs for India make some interesting reading. We failed to record a single victory in the first 11 and failed to lose a single match in the last 8.

Then there was the Australia-South Africa tour which had more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie suspense novel.

Pakistan also shrugged off their match-fixing and form woes to stun Sri Lanka in all three formats of the game: Tests, ODIs and the one-off T20. In fact, out of the nine international matches a generally consistent Sri Lanka played at Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, they could just muster up a solitary win.

And now we had what was probably one of the most thrilling draws in the history of Test cricket. When we went into the last over of the day, all four results were possible.

The only thing we have missed out on was another 200+ fourth innings Test chase, something which we have been doing with great regularity of late.

Why do the Windies always crash?

Though India played brilliantly throughout the series, one question remains is why the West Indies team keeps crashing for no rhyme or reason. They are not a bad team like Zimbabwe or Bangladesh.

That's evident from the fact that they keep getting into winning situations and keep squandering them for no rhyme or reason. After scoring 304 in the first Test, they had us on the mat at 154/7. They still lost after that.

Even in the recently concluded third Test, at 474-3, they were looking to declare at a score of 650+, but still got bowled out. Then they had us on the mat again at 331-6, but India still avoided the follow-on quite comfortably.

To score 590 runs in the first innings and still be one hit away from losing the match on the last ball is a situation that only the West Indies can walk into.

Even after the atrocious batting of the first session, they could have still won the Test had it not been for the atrocious fielding of the next two sessions.

Dropping one of the rare players who has scored two Test triples definitely does not help matters.

2011 is the year of the dream debuts

South African bowler Vernon Philander became man-of-the series on his Test debut with Australia and R Ashwin followed suit. Both of them took a fiver in their first match and they are not alone.

Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon did it for Australia and Doug Bracewell did it for New Zealand this year.

In fact we have rarely sent such a fresh Test team as we are sending Down Under this time. Five players (Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Ashwin, Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron) made their Test debuts this year while Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma are yet to do so. Even Wriddhiman Saha has just played one Test and Pragyan Ojha has only recently cemented his place in the team.

The Mahashatak Mystery

Most of the media attention has been on Sachin Tendulkar and his inability to belt out the "mahashatak" or 100th international 100. Actually it's an artificial record. He has more than 50 Test centuries, which in itself is an achievement. He is also closing in on 50 ODI centuries, which will be the actual landmark.

Some are talking of his repeated failures, but he has done quite well in this series. His 76 in the final innings of the first Test helped us chase a tricky target of 276 runs. He contributed with the bat in the second Test, where India had to play only one innings.

In the final Test, his 94 helped us avoid the follow-on, which was a more important target at that time.

But if he continues to get nervous in the nineties and doesn't play in the ODIs against the Windies, then the pressure on Australian soil will be far far greater!

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The author is a Bengaluru-based journalist and blogger.

He blogs at http://sunilrajguru.com/