Living in denial a way with our cricket bosses

The most important prerequisite of good preparation is honesty, for a less than 100% honest appraisal is akin to not preparing at all. Aakash Chopra writes.

The most important prerequisite of good preparation is honesty, for a less than 100% honest appraisal is akin to not preparing at all.

Unfortunately, preparation has never been India's forte. Instead, India players and officials alike have developed a unique ability to constantly live in denial.

If you refuse to accept that there's a need to change, the results are unlikely to change either.

When India got hammered in Australia and England, 'the people who mattered' used the theory of 'fast' pitches leading to our downfall as a cover up for the debacle. Rather than conceding that these failures reflected a collective decline of the team. They were still bullish about their enviable home record. They even vowed to 'teach' these teams a lesson while playing on dusty pitches the next time they toured India.

Well, England learnt their lessons after their drubbing against Pakistan and came well prepared.

On the contrary, India continued with a woefully out-of-form batting line-up, hoping that they'd come good against England. And just to make matters worse for an already struggling batting line-up, Dhoni started demanding a rank turner everywhere he went.

India's cup of woes has been overflowing for a long time and hence another failure shouldn't come as a surprise.

If it still does, it shows that, perhaps, we weren't honest with ourselves while preparing for this home season. The time for action is over, now is the time to put the thinking cap on. Indian cricket has reached its nadir and making a few radical changes with regards to the personnel won't change the fortunes (not suggesting that we stick to the same lot), but it's time to do an in-depth analysis to identify the problems and address them.

The writer is a former India opener