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India look to redeem themselves
A rudderless India will be looking to shrug off two successive defeats.
A rudderless India will be looking to shrug off two successive defeats as well as the loss of skipper Sourav Ganguly when they take on a pumped-up Pakistan in the crucial fifth One-Day international at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur on Friday.
With the six-match series tantalisingly poised at 2-2, both the teams will be determined to take an unassailable lead in what promises to be another nail-biting contest between the arch-rivals.
India have not won a one-day series at home in the last five years, except for the one against Zimbabwe in 2000-01.
Their sequence of defeats include losses to Australia in 2001, the West Indies in 2002-03, the TVS Cup tri-series in 2003-04 which was won by Australia and the 3-3 tie with England in 2001-02.
Their last series win came against late Hansie Cronje's South Africa in 2000 when, ironically, Ganguly took over as captain from Sachin Tendulkar.
But ICC match referee Chris Broad might have done the Indians a favour with his six-match ban on their skipper.
Ganguly's form has run into rough weather and the batsman considered to have one of the best timing in shots and hand-eye co-ordination had shown no immediate signs of recovering it.
Ganguly's struggle in putting bat to ball, combined with Tendulkar's cramps, saw the run rate briefly dip in the Ahmedabad one-dayer. And given the fact that Pakistan eked out a last-ball win, one could not help wonder if few more runs from an in-form Ganguly could have sprung a different result.
His sitting out will now open up new vistas for India. Not only promotions for Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif in the batting order but also the inclusion of an extra bowler, that is if the team decides to do away with the seven batsmen theory.
Indians should thank Mahendra Singh Dhoni for providing them a chance to include that one extra bowler. The 23-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman from Jharkhand has been a revelation and with the Pakistanis yet to find chinks in his armour, he could be on song in the next two matches as well.
Tendulkar answered his critics with a sublime knock in the last match. His knock was special not so much for his aggression as for the way he took the initiative in maintaining the tempo after the fall of opening partner Virender Sehwag.
