Yet another series defeat

Chasing a huge victory target at Nagpur to remain in the series, Indians would have fancied their chances when Ganguly and Tendulkar put on a solid century opening partnership, which was followed by another useful partnership for the second wicket between Ganguly and Pathan. India should have pulled off a memorable victory from this position, however some inexplicable captaincy from Dhoni (which saw totally out of form Dravid being sent at number four) coupled with totally defensive attitude of Ganguly, Yuvraj and Dravid put the asking rate out of the reach.

Between 34th and 42nd overs Indians scored only 33 runs in 9 overs. Indian batsmen played as many as 30 dot balls during this period and could hit only one boundary. It was a collective failure and any particular batsman cannot be singled out, as even Dhoni and Uthappa failed to up the scoring rate. Dhoni and Uthappa made amends thereafter, but by then the asking rate had become too high to be achieved.

Indian innings
Overs   Runs Wkts Run-Rate
1-33    189    2    5.72
34-42    33    3    3.66
43-50    77    2    9.62

....and this is how various batsmen played during this phase of nine overs

         Balls Dots Runs 4s   SR
Ganguly   13    6    8    0  61.53
Dravid    13    6    7    0  53.84
Yuvraj    11    8    6    1  54.54
Dhoni     11    7    4    0  36.36
Uthappa    6    3    3    0  50.00

The approach of some of the Indian batsmen today was baffling to say the least. It was as if the match was being played on two different strips. India needed to score at a rate of 106 (runs per 100 balls) to win the match. While the combination of Sachin,Pathan,Dhoni and Uthappa even bettered the required scoring-rate, the three senior most guys in Ganguly, Dravid and Yuvraj managed to score at a rate of only 73, which made all the difference in the end.

                                    Balls  Runs   SR
Sachin + Pathan + Dhoni + Uthappa   158    171  108.23
Ganguly + Dravid + Yuvraj           135     99   73.33