The Hindu : Sport : Pathan is the find of the season

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 23, 2004

Sport

Sport

Pathan is the find of the season

It has been a good year of Test cricket for Team India. We have done well in every series this year except the one against Australia at home. Our performance in Australia and in Pakistan was, of course, the high point. On the whole, the boys have been outstanding in the longer version of the game and it has shown in the rankings as well. We have risen as high as No. 2 in the team ratings chart and it's no mean achievement.

A well-rounded series win over Bangladesh is what we wanted and that's what we've got. Everyone expected India to beat Bangladesh, so it may not be a big deal, but it is not easy playing this sort of series where you have very little to gain but one false step can cause plenty of embarrassment. The guys needed to keep their focus and they made it look easy.

The fact that nobody wanted to miss a Test match shows the mental make up of this team.

There were a few good individual performances during the series. Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir and Irfan Pathan all had their moments of glory.

Historical year

The year 2004 will go down in history as the year during which two of Indian cricket's most cherished records were either broken or equalled. Kumble surpassing Kapil's 434 wickets was a monumental feat, while Sachin touching Sunil Gavakar's 34 Test hundreds showed the kind of stuff champions are made of.

For Bangladesh, there were a few positives as well. I thought they batted quite well in the first innings of the second Test. Young Mohammad Ashraful showed plenty of courage to score an unbeaten century against us. He loves to play his shots, but he should aim to be more consistent. At the top level you are as good as your last innings. Bangladesh should look to build on the gains from this series when they go into their next series against Zimbabwe.

While we have done well in Tests, our ODI form has been well below par. It's an area that we need to look at seriously, for, in modern cricket, you have to be good in both forms of the game to be considered as a top side.

We need to work hard

Our one-day form dipped significantly after the Pakistan tour. Inconsistency in batting has been one of the major reasons for our poor performance in ODIs this season. Also our fielding needs to be sharper. We need to work hard at our game and we have to begin right now.

A clean sweep in the three-match ODI series would be the ideal way to bring down the curtain on a remarkable year during which young Irfan Pathan has clearly emerged as the find of the season.

Hopefully, he will carry on the good work for years to come.

(CafeCricket)

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