Why did India get whitewashed?

[mcgillianaire]

(This post was inspired by a similar one about the riots from a couple weeks ago. Enjoy!)

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Poor preparation; England's bowling superiority; England's batting superiority; England's fielding superiority; England's coaching superiority; World Cup hangover; IPL hangover; Foreign tour syndrome; Bouncy pitches; Lateral movement; reverse swing; normal swing; chin music; fast bowling; slow bowling

The Lord's slope; English weather; Boredom; New ball; Old ball; Green pitches; Weight of expectations; Unrealistic expectations; Sunil Gavaskar's commentary; Michael Vaughan's tweets; Joey Barton's tweets; TMS; HotSpot; DRS; Back-to-back Tests; Back-to-back Tours

Anna Hazare; Full-capacity Test crowds; Arul Suppiah; Raina's misleading century against Somerset; Zak's injury; Harbhajan Singh; Charl Willoughby; Stuart Broad's hat-trick; Pietersen's double-century; Cook's double-century; Prior's stump commentary; Lack of fitness; SRT's 100th international century; Ishant's line and length; Sreesanth; Sehwag's hearing; Sehwag's shoulder; Sehwag's approach to batting;

Hostile Trent Bridge crowd; Bell-gate; On-field umpires; Off-field umpires; The Laws of the Game; Corruption in India; RP Singh; Mishra's no-balls; Impatience; Lack of application; Balls bouncing above knee height; bouncers; yorkers; length deliveries; off-breaks; the one that straightens; innocuous deliveries; Ian Bell; the BCCI; Overcommercialisation; Ian Botham; the Top ranking; the 2000th Test; the 100th Test

The England riots; Duncan Fletcher's humour; the media; the experts; player sponsorships; too much wealth; lack of patriotism; physical exhaustion; mental exhaustion; Ishant's haircut; Strauss's captaincy; Dhoni's captaincy; dropped catches; hands in pockets; bad luck; shit happens; somewhere in the world, a butterfly flapped its wings

Does that cover everything?

Comments

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

The Lord's slope? Or was that deliberately missed out since everyone mentions it!?

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Haha I forgot about that and have added it in now. Thanks!

[lctrc-gtr-dde.livejournal.com]

1. Format of the game (tests). Not tamasha enough.

2. Not enough anti-India sentiment being expressed prior to the series. Instead, they were built up as the number one team. This did nothing to motivate them.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

1. Too right! Definitely not enough music played between deliveries or scantily-clad cheerleaders.

2. This is a good point actually. After Bell-gate I think there was a concern that we were being too soft and nice, that there was not enough needle between the teams. India likes a good controversy and without it we just seemed flat and insipid. During the 3rd Test an email was sent to TMS which was read out during an interview with Sourav: "Ganguly should be leading the team on the pitch, not in the commentator's box, because we need someone to irritate the English." You could tell Dada was embarrassed yet knowing deep-down it was true.

[lctrc-gtr-dde.livejournal.com]

I think India needs the English (or Australians) to irritate them. That's the only time the Indian players will start to play for each other, and you only win when you start playing for your team mates. Or a particularly irritable (and inspirational) captain I suppose.

Without it, it's a job. With it, it's a cause. In the medium to long term, India should look at how they can make their players see themselves as a team with a cause by default, without the need for external irritants motivation. And that culture should permeate down at least one level to the players competing to get into the national side.