England’s ‘generational talent’ must deliver

England’s Jacob Bethell (right) goes for a catch as teammates look on during a practice session in Sydney on Saturday. PICS/GETTY IMAGES

Usman Khawaja, who announced that the last Test match in Sydney is going to be his final appearance in Australian colours, also spoke from his heart about the greater battle that players, especially those who are from the sub-continent, have to face in countries which call themselves developed but have plenty to develop in their minds. What sort of reception he gets when he walks onto the ground will be known by the time you read this and give a better idea if his comments have hit the right or the wrong nerve. Here's hoping he gets a ton in each innings like he did in the last Ashes Test there and goes out on such a high that those who hounded him will be looking for binoculars to see how high he is above them.

Ben Stokes also gets full marks for saying at the end of the farcical game called a Test match in Melbourne that if there was a pitch like that anywhere else in the world (read India), then all hell would have broken loose. Not surprisingly, many have come to the defence of the curator, sorry, Director of Turf, and suggested it was an honest mistake in leaving so much grass on the pitch. It's exactly like in the old times that whenever an English and Australian umpire made wrong decisions then it was a ‘human error', while mistakes made by the sub-continent umpires was ‘cheating.' Even today, despite the ICC panel of umpires officiating in games, a mistake made by them is often mentioned with their name and country suggesting that it was incompetence or more, while similar mistakes by umpires from the so-called developed countries gets overlooked as if it was insignificant to the result of the match.

Elusive success

England have a chance of ending the tour on a high and beginning the new year with a win and keep their chances of qualifying for the WTC final next year. For that to happen, it is important that the ‘generational talent' in their team come of age and live up to the expectations. Sometimes, these monikers can be a burden too much to bear and at other times, it makes the talent feel that all he has to do is to walk on the field and success will be there for the taking. However, as we have seen so far, success has been elusive and hopefully the ‘generational talent' will deliver in this generation and not the next.

All those English players who mocked Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar when they opted to bat on and get to their centuries and not accept the offer to go off the field will have realised that Test match centuries don't come every day. Both the Indian batters had battled their way to their individual 80s and frustrated the bowlers and with another Test to go, were doing the tactical thing in keeping the fielders in the sun for some more time and were perfectly entitled to do so. Those who derided and mocked them then for batting on are finding in Australia that their bats have only edges or holes in the middle. Cricket is a great leveller and anybody who shows arrogance as different from confidence gets to learn that very quickly.

With the ICC U-19 World Cup due to start shortly, the India U-19 team have a good chance to show that what happened in the Asia Cup final was just a bad day in the office. Winning and losing is part of sport, but the defeat and that too against Pakistan by the whopping margin of 191 runs was a shock. The worst part was that a team that had earlier been piling double centuries and runs against minnow U-19 teams could bat only 26 out of the 50 overs. Even the bowlers who got easy wickets earlier were pummelled for over 300 runs by the Pakistani youngsters.

Reckless shot selection

The IPL auction took place during the tournament and perhaps some of those selected thought they were playing a T20 game instead of the 50-over format. Some of the dismissals to reckless shots were most disappointing and while it's understandable that a huge target had been set nobody seemed to be ready to fight it out.

If they win the U-19 World Cup, it will help erase the disappointment, but to do that they must learn to play the game situation and not to try to live up to the image they have got. Yes, generational talent or not, it's performing talent that matters most.

To all the readers, a Happy, Healthy and Blessed year ahead.

Professional Management Group