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Is age playing its part? |
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By: khalid a-h ansari |
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Date:
2008-10-20 |
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Place: SYDNEY |
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Matthew Hayden's disappointing form, which has seen him score just 13 runs in three innings in this series, is prompting Australian critics to ask whether age is catching up with him.
The opening batsman, who will turn 37 next week, has been the bedrock of Australian batting. But his Achilles heel injury, which led him to miss the series against the West Indies, and serious concerns about his fitness make for a situation of crisis proportions for the Queenslander.
Hayden, considered the most feared batsman in the Australian line-up in Indian conditions, has been consumed on all three occasions by his nemesis Zaheer Khan, who has made no secret of the fact that he is targeting the veteran opener. Two of his dismissals have been for a duck, but it must be conceded that he was somewhat unlucky in being given out in Bengaluru.
To add to the tourists' woes has been the lacklustre showing of pace spearhead Brett Lee who failed even to make an impression on lower order batsmen Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan, prompting the latter to say that the Australians would find it difficult to bowl India out twice.
There have been suggestions that the blond fast bowler's marital problems may be the reason for his below-par showing.
Personal issues aside, the world champions are largely dependent on Lee's early explosiveness and sustained hostility for dramatic breakthroughs, given the pronounced impotence of their inexperienced spin attack. To that extent, Lee's inability to blow away India's top order has seriously skewed the tourists' well-laid plans.
The Australian media has played up umpire Rudi Koertzen's failure to call for the third umpire for a stumping decision against Sourav Ganguly in the Mohali Test, and a visiting reporter has thought it fit to mention the "joyous cheers from a fan-friendly media box which were almost as loud as those offered by another disappointing crowd (at Mohali)".
The exuberant conduct of a notoriously parochial section of the Indian media in its working area is, unfortunately, becoming endemic. There has been an unwritten code of conduct in press boxes the world over, and demonstrations of bias in the sanctum sanctorum are an absolute no-no.
Alas, times are changing in India.
Howsoever errant the partisan Indian journalists' behaviour, it is hoped that this incident, the scarcely-disguised irritation shown by a section of the Australian media over Ganguly's fortuitous escape and its unnecessary, but repeated, raking up of instances of past umpiring decisions, will not blight an eminently absorbing series.
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