Will be harsh to blame Balaji for loss

Oct 15, 2012 - Gautam Gambhir

I am sure most of us go through this. But with me it happened for the first time in my international cricketing career

. October 14 is my birthday and I have a general feel good factor around this time. Yes, like all of you I too am fond of gifts but the feel good is because winter is slowly trooping in around this time.
The buzz of a new cricketing season, early morning dew, a pleasant chill, preparations for the festive season and evening air filled with the smell of smoke from a corn seller — all a heady cocktail of early winter in north India. And around this time I have never had an indifferent performance on a cricket field.

In 2008 while playing a Test match in Mohali against Australia, I got a 67 and a hundred. More importantly my team won by over 300 runs. Then last year on October 14, India beat England in an ODI by more than a hundred runs and I got a decent 32 off 33 balls. This was followed by another India win on October 17 in Delhi, where I got an unbeaten 84.
But this year so far has been an exception. We played on October 13, lost and I got a golden duck. Birthday or no birthday, it feels wretched to lose a T20 game by a margin of 52 runs and that too when we had things under control.
It will be harsh and misplaced to blame Balaji for the loss. I think he is a class act. He just had an off day which in this format is not too far away for even the best of bowlers. I think on that wicket our batting should have applied itself a little more. I should have hung around and looked to play conventional cricket in these conditions. By that I mean seeing the new ball off and then going for a calculated assault.
To me, we were always catching up when we were three down for mere four runs and Jacques Kallis had retired hurt. Thankfully, Kallis doesn’t have a fracture and we will take a call on his participation against Auckland Aces on Monday.
Delhi bowlers did really well. Irfan’s swing and Morkel’s steep bounce pegged us back. Both presented two extremely different challenges. I am really happy for Irfan and the fact that he has rediscovered his swing and rhythm.
For KKR, Sunil Narine once again showed why he is such a class act. He looked exceptional on a track that didn’t assist spinners. (360 Corporate Relations)

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/195500" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f669e62575c2b255190c2a00a4a2455e" value="form-f669e62575c2b255190c2a00a4a2455e" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88248125" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>