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ShareHyderabad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni's admission that his side lost it in the mind in the dying stages of the fifth ODI here on Thursday is as much a frank admission as it is a wake-up call. In international sport, wherein skills can more or less be the same, it is the battle upstairs that makes the difference -- especially when games go down to the wire.
The Australians are masters at holding the psychological edge over their opponents. However, during Sachin Tendulkar's audacious charge, Ricky Ponting & Co. tried hard to mask their frayed nerves. They looked like they had lost the game. That was till the great man fell. And soon, the tables had turned.
When Tendulkar departed, India needed 19 off 17 balls. Ravindra Jadeja, still a green horn in international cricket, dashed off for a non-existent run and fell short after being sent back by Praveen Kumar. Ashish Nehra holed out to long-on and with five required off three, Praveen Kumar failed to make his ground.
"You can say we lost the final plot. It is related to the mind. That is exactly the aspect where we came up short. It is about controlling the instincts. At times when you are batting, you go with the emotions and tend to forget what is needed at that point," Dhoni admitted after Thursday's thriller.
Says former India captain and coach Ajit Wadekar. "I was reminded of the Chennai Test (1999) last (Thursday) night," Wadekar, who was then chief selector, told DNA on Friday. "We were cruising thanks to Sachin and (Nayan) Mongia. I therefore decided to fly back early. By the time I reached Mumbai, I was shocked to hear we lost," he chuckled.
Talking about Thursday's humdinger, Wadekar said the others thought 'they could play like Sachin'. "Harbhajan thought he could go bang-bang like he did in the first match. None of them applied themselves. They failed to understand the seriousness of the situation," Wadekar added.
Former India left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi, who played in that ill-fated Chennai Test, said the youngsters should show more maturity. "They are all smart and talented but sometimes, they lack presence of mind. Jadeja (Ravindra) had no business to go for that single," Joshi said. When asked if he was reminded of the 1999 episode on Thursday night, Joshi simply said, "Ten long years have passed."
India has a mental conditioning coach in Paddy Upton. And in spite of Tendulkar taking India to the doorstep of victory, his capable colleagues collectively failed to take that small, last step. That the lower order couldn't polish off a run-a-ball -- which can be termed as 'gettable' in this day and age of Twenty20 cricket -- is worth introspection.
The Australians are known to hold their nerve in close matches. In the Champions Trophy, they sneaked past Pakistan in a group stage match that assured them of a semifinal berth and also ensured that India went back home. Ponting, who has been an understudy of Steve Waugh -- who in fact, 'finetuned' the art of mental disintegration -- would have known told himself 'Get Sachin, win the game'. And that's exactly what happened.
--Inputs from Derek Abraham in Mumbai
