Oh No...Not again..

Once again we falter.. Its not the defeat that hurts.Its because we have caved down once again without a semblance of fight..again it reiterates the old sayin that we are tigers at home and paper tigers abroad..After almost 26 yrs after kapil's match winning spell at the MCG we had a realistic chance of winning the test match.Things were lookin so good at the end of day 2 but again the indian fans seemed to have been sold a dummy. We were in a way lucky that we dint have to bat under the overcast conditions on the first day against a wel-oiled aussie bowling attack.Frankly, we had the best conditions to bat on day2 and day 3. Another worrying aspect was though 3 of our top4 managed to score fifties in the first innings none of them kicked on to score that big hundred. Though half our team managed to reach 2 weeks before the first test to get acclimatised to the conditions it does not seem to have helped much. But the famed indian batting line up failing cant really be blamed on the alien conditions or the seaming wickets as in england. It was a fantastic cricket wicket at the MCG suiting batsmen who were ready to battle it out and fast bowlers aiming to hit the right areas.Gambhir's form in the last few months has been a big worrying factor.From the injury hit england tour he has never been able to translate his hunger in to runs.The indian team would be really hoping for the delhi opener toreturn to some good form at the earliest. A perennial problem that has been causing the indian team a lot of issues is closing out an innings when we have been in winning positions. The same happened in capetown at the beginning of this year when our bowlers were not able to close out the last recognised batting pair which would have enabled us to win a test series for the first time in the rainbow nation.The same happened here in this test when we had the aussies reeling at 27-4 and 177-8 and still the aussies managed to set a target close to 300 which seized the initiative in their favour.I never seem to understand MSD's tactics of spreadin the field when a batsmen plays with a tail ender.Also the field given to Ashwin was always on the defensive with a fielder stationed at long on even when a batsman is new to the crease. Though all is not lost for the indian team. The indian fast bowlers showed great character and skill to keep the aussie batsmen at bay.Young yadav displayed great courage on his first tour down under in bowling at the right areas and not getting carriedaway by the pace and bounce of the wicket.The remainder of the series requires fit indian fast bowlers hitting the right areas and more importantly the famed batting lineup applyin themselves and the runs would come in time.