It is an oft-repeated phrase in the Indian cricketing parlance; so near, yet, so very far. Despite the South Africans having bagged the official rights to the appellation of chokers, the Indians have demonstrated in this series, that given the right opposition and conditions, they are not too far behind. They are down 2-3 in the seven-game series and in all the three games that they lost, a win was much more than just a remote possibility.
That Sachin Tendulkar played an innings of his life-time – and it has been an illustrious career at that – is an understatement. However, that he played a rather puzzling shot in a situation which demanded 17 singles and a couple to win the game is an equally foregone statement. While christening the shot he played in the 48th over of Clint McKay to having ‘done a Misbah’ would be cruel to the man who not only smashed a 175 in the game but also completed 17,000 runs, the fact of the matter is that it was clearly a shot that he could have avoided.
No, I do not say this because I am one of those few Tendulkar-bashers in the country. Nor do I say it because I am wiser in the hindsight. It is just that India needed 19 runs off the last 18 balls and had two set batsmen at the crease to deal with the business. With the batting Powerplay only three overs old, the boundary would have come sometime down the line and it needed a cool head to guide the home team through.
Instead, Tendulkar opted to go for the scoop-shot that he usually plays against the spinners much better than the quicker ones. Ironically, McKay bowled it much slower than his rest of the deliveries and all Tendulkar could do was to get it high on his bat, and scoop it up to offer a dolly that the Aussie fielder accepted.
The rest, as they say was history. It was very evident that Ravindra Jadeja does not possess the wherewithal to bat in a situation which was tailor-made for the gritty. In a very short career, this was the third occasion when he muffed up a golden opportunity to prove it to the selectors that he had the potential to be counted as one of the better finishers for his side batting down the order. In fact, Harbhajan Singh has proved to be a better finisher than him in this series.
Earlier, the Aussies had almost batted the Indians out of the game. The signs were there in the game at Mohali that the Australian side looked good to pile up a big one. It was only a chance collapse that saw them get restricted to 250, but they were clearly in no mood to repeat the mistakes of the previous game.
Unfortunately, Team India looks like they manage to learn nothing from their mistakes.