When the Tests ended the Indian fans let out a breath of relief. After all their team might have been ex number ones in Test but they were definitely the reigning ODI World Champions and with IPL on their CVs, no mugs in T20s either. They were confident that the whitewash by the Australians was just to give their team a canvas to create a masterpiece.
The old horses were flogged home and new ponies brought over to get the adrenaline pumping. The team was raging to get back at the Aussies. It was time for revenge and they wouldn’t stop at anything less than complete demolition job. Or so the fans thought.
But the T20 came and went and the white canvas is now beginning to look like unending arctic landscape. The team that turned up for the T20 match was as clueless about T20 as the Test team was about Test cricket. At no point during the match did the team look capable of winning the match. They were thoroughly outclassed.
There was lot of outrage when RVK was picked to partner PK ahead of Irfan but it was a master stroke as Warner couldn’t figure out if he was a fast bowler bowling slower ones or a spinner bowling quicker ones and eventually top edged one of his deliveries. At the end of the Australian innings it seemed that PK’s and RVK’s figures were swapped. Jadeja, playing as a specialist all rounder, bowled fewer overs and gave away more runs than Raina. The Sharmas combined to bowl 4 overs for 29 runs, 1 wicket, 2 dropped catches, and one split webbing. Ashwin survived Warner’s onslaught to end with 1/34.
When it was India’s turn to bat, Sehwag was out for 4, but that is okay as per his logic since he recently scored a double century at home. Gambhir finally looked like he knew what he was doing and Kohli was being Kohli till the usual happened. By usual I mean wickets fell in a bunch, run rate went down, and all hopes of a win evaporated. MSD finally found his Test batting skills and put them to best practice before someone reminded him that it was a T20. By then the RRR had jumped up to 15 and the situation was pretty much hopeless. As a result India went on to lose by 31 runs, roughly 100 runs in ODI terms.
Now if they continue in the same vein, Bailey can recall more oldies of hand debuts to some right out of the crib prodigies as he can count on this Indian team to self destruct. I don’t see the whitewash ending anytime soon as it is the Indian team itself that has painted themselves in to a corner they can’t seem to get out of.