Back at the academy we were all wearing the war paint huddled in our battle dress listening to the orders from the ambush commander. It was all there on the makeshift cloth model in detail down to the cut off party or whatever. At the end of it all with a smart salute the commander thundered ‘I have finished, sir”. All heads turned towards the DS – “Well done”, we all thought he would say as the orders were impressive. In the plan all angles were covered and there was no obvious reason for failure. “The plan is fine. But there is no element of surprise to the enemy (deception by us). What if the enemy patrol spots the ambush and rushes the Light Machine Gun (LMG) position?” Our ambush commander was well prepared and he did have a deception plan. He would deploy the rattler (that which simulates the staccato of a machine gun) across the nallah on the opposite side from the LMG. In this way the enemy would not know the correct location of the automatic.
I was reminded of this story, when MS Dhoni said that the surprise selection of Piyush Chawla in the world cup team is meant to be his surprise weapon against all opposition on the Indian tracks. Like the rattler, as yet Piyush Chawla has been a non-starter. Another surprise was losing the last 9 wickets for 29 runs after being 271 for 1 against SA. That one was better than the rattler. You leave the office early at about 250 for 1 hoping to catch up at about 350 for 3 with about 10 overs yet to go andYusuf Pathan at the crease. When you reach home late through heavy traffic because many others thought the way you did and you find Harsha Bogle with his new hair and all on the screen telling that India are all out for 297 (was it?), you had to rate this one above the rattler.
When you lose, either the batsmen, the bowlers or the fielders are at fault. The surprise is that they seldom perform well all in the same game. So England were surprised themselves that they equaled India’s 327 to tie the match. Ireland were surprised India found it difficult to score 221 for a win against them. Bangladesh were well placed against India and they lost is the only surprise which was not a surprise.
Where does the Indian team go from here? Most of the players went home (or for ad shoots) after their loss to SA. Till the last report many of them had not returned to base. The respite from the rigors of practice was ostensibly to let players get back their concentration. Now the surprise of surprises – the loss of concentration has been blamed on you, me and other Indians. MSD questions as to why did we leave our office at 250 for 1. In the days of Gavakar and Kapil, he argued, we never moved from our seats lest the Indian batter get out. We used to will the ball from Willis away from the stumps and on to the bat of Sandeep Patil so that he scored six fours off one over from him. Now we want Tendulkar to bat on while we move out of our office into our cars and get stuck in traffic. Why were we not concentrating on the ball?
So friends, if you want India to win the world cup, get back to your old ways while Dhoni employs his surprises(deception). We may yet win the cup.
I was reminded of this story, when MS Dhoni said that the surprise selection of Piyush Chawla in the world cup team is meant to be his surprise weapon against all opposition on the Indian tracks. Like the rattler, as yet Piyush Chawla has been a non-starter. Another surprise was losing the last 9 wickets for 29 runs after being 271 for 1 against SA. That one was better than the rattler. You leave the office early at about 250 for 1 hoping to catch up at about 350 for 3 with about 10 overs yet to go andYusuf Pathan at the crease. When you reach home late through heavy traffic because many others thought the way you did and you find Harsha Bogle with his new hair and all on the screen telling that India are all out for 297 (was it?), you had to rate this one above the rattler.
When you lose, either the batsmen, the bowlers or the fielders are at fault. The surprise is that they seldom perform well all in the same game. So England were surprised themselves that they equaled India’s 327 to tie the match. Ireland were surprised India found it difficult to score 221 for a win against them. Bangladesh were well placed against India and they lost is the only surprise which was not a surprise.
Where does the Indian team go from here? Most of the players went home (or for ad shoots) after their loss to SA. Till the last report many of them had not returned to base. The respite from the rigors of practice was ostensibly to let players get back their concentration. Now the surprise of surprises – the loss of concentration has been blamed on you, me and other Indians. MSD questions as to why did we leave our office at 250 for 1. In the days of Gavakar and Kapil, he argued, we never moved from our seats lest the Indian batter get out. We used to will the ball from Willis away from the stumps and on to the bat of Sandeep Patil so that he scored six fours off one over from him. Now we want Tendulkar to bat on while we move out of our office into our cars and get stuck in traffic. Why were we not concentrating on the ball?
So friends, if you want India to win the world cup, get back to your old ways while Dhoni employs his surprises(deception). We may yet win the cup.
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