Dreams...

India finished the Pak tour with a bang. A big bang. 4-1, thats the stuff dreams are made of. Ok dreams are made of 5-0. And I predicted lot of hedious stuff for my team. Thankfully, I was wrong most of the times.It feels good. So,wrapping up a few positives for India, wont be a bad idea.

First : Rahul Dravid or the art of captaincy. When teams are on a roll everything seems good. Similarly can be analysed Dravid's captaincy. And its too early and too short a frame of reference to say Dravid is a brilliant captain. But I never expected Indian captains to take the lead and put themselves on the sword first. A precedent has been set. And I hope when this is not followed, questions should be asked.Seriously, the test series were no thrill till the final test. But watching Dravid accompanying Sehwag to open the batting will be a sight I'll never forget. Maybe I am taking too much out of this act but I sincerely hope its much much more.

Second: The ghost of Ganguly is at rest for the moment. By logic it should have been dead long ago. But what the performance of Yuvi and other youngster does is starve the politicians, the limelight seekers of food for tossing this issue again for the moment. I hope the performances in Pak will be augmented by still finer ones and thus the Ganguly is put to rest for all times.

Third: Smartness. I longed for a smart Indian team, and this is it. Physically agile and mentally sharp. These two features came off brilliantly in the series. And that to me was the biggest difference between the Indian and Pak one day sides. There was a small moment in the series which exemplified this very well. Suresh Raina was stationed by Dravid between silly mid off or short mid off, rather unorthodoxly for Kamran Akmal. And Akmal surely did played into their hands. And after taking the catch Raina straight away rushed to Dravid pointing a finger and Dravid was running towards him. It was clear they had plotted the wicket with the bowler rather than waiting for it. This is the stuff I used to see implemented by the South Africans and Australians.

We are on the right path. But we have just knocked the door and made the first few steps. The trophy is in the next room cupboard.One team is already there in the next room. And another doesnt believe in taking steps, it jumps.

Strategy

India win again and Pakistan loose again.
I am very happy that way. But one thing is for sure, Bob Woolmer and Inzamam are helping us in a big way. As I looked at the scorecard on rediff.com, some things just beat me.

• What is a batsman in a form and of skill like Younis Khan doing in No 7?
• Why did Inzamam ( in my book a better batsman at the moment than Tendulkar) doing at No.6? He should come as early as possible.
• What is Afridi doing opening the batting?
• They have got one of the best late order hitters in the form of Afridi, Razzaq and Malik and why arent they channelising their talents?

Pakistan have an edge over India in the form of their bowling and they are themselves thwarting it. My Paki batting line up goes like this:

1. Salman Butt
2. Kamran Akmal
3. Younis Khan
4. Inzamam ul Haq
5. Mohammad Yousuf
6. Shoaib Malik
7. Shahid Afridi
8. Abdur Razzaq
9. Rana Naveed
10. M Asif
11. Gul

Now with a batting line arranged like this, which goes as deep as No.8, and a bowling line up with a distinct edge over India, they are in a better position to defeat India. Tinkering is good when there is shortage of talent or too much of concentration of it in one particular department. But when you have an extremely talented and well balanced side all you need is allignment of that talent, Mr Woolmer.