India may have escaped a scare – a humiliation and embarrassment of the highest order – against Bangladesh in Dhaka with a fantastic 8th-wicket partnership of 71* (105) between Shreyas Iyer and Ravichandran Ashwin, clinching the series 2-0, however, this win doesn’t and shouldn’t paper over the cracks that are in Team India, both among the players and the management.
Shakib Al Hasan’s team could have seen the light of victory when they had India struggling at 74/7 in the chase of 145. R Ashwin got a reprieve when Mominul Haque dropped his catch at short leg when he had only scored 1 run.
After that drop, Ashwin and Iyer batted cautiously for the initial phase of their partnership, only looking to rotate the strike and survive. They then started picking up boundaries over loose balls. Once the target got under 30, boundaries flew as Bangladesh bowlers and captain Shakib panicked.
Ashwin finished off the chase with a six and two fours off Mehidy and remained unbeaten on 42 off 62 balls, and Iyer on 29 off 46 balls. Earlier it was Axar Patel who scored 34 runs and held one end while others around him capitulated. Ashwin was awarded the Man of the Match award while Pujara bagged the Player of the Series award.
Ashwin and Iyer save India from massive humiliation in Dhaka
India have an important 4-Test home series against Australia lined up in February, before that, though, there are some important introspection to be done by the players and the management headed by coach Rahul Dravid, whose tenure has been ladened with debatable selection calls, players getting frequent injuries, a spate of captains leading India in the past 12 months, and no major trophy/series win to show.
The latest of the controversial selection call that he and interim captain KL Rahul made was to drop Kuldeep Yadav from the Dhaka Test right after his Man of the Match performance in Chattogram.
Actor Suresh Menon seem to have lost his head over Dravid and Rahul/Rohit’s tenure, and the veteran actor slammed the “spineless” Indian team management.
“Spineless Captain Spineless coach #INDvBAN ….. absolute mockery of the selection process and a waste of cricket fan’s time some players are only good for IPL.. Indian Paisa League,” Menon tweeted, and his tweet has gone viral in quick time.
Spineless Captain Spineless coach #INDvBAN ….. absolute mockery of the selection process and a waste of cricket fan’s time 😡😡 some players are only good for IPL.. Indian Paisa League….
— Suresh Menon (@sureshnmenon) December 25, 2022
