Some old stuff

India look quite scattered in this one-day series, and frankly, they do not seem like a new outfit, but one imbued with all the problems of Indian teams of old, inconsistency being the worst. Yesterday's comments by Dravid on the gradual adjustment of the batsmen to the "slow pitches" of the Caribbean were interesting. Now the Indian batsmen need time to adjust to slow pitches? I thought it used to be bouncy pitches that we had trouble with. For all their improvement over the past season (something some cricket journalists have hyped excessively), its worth reminding ourselves that this team is still a work in progress, still prone to taking two steps backward after taking one forward, and still prone to becoming unraveled. India won a scratchy win in the first ODI, failed to assert control in the second, and after derailing in the yesterday's batting stint, failed to drive home control. Pathan has this odd habit of taking every other match off, or so it seems; Sreesanth needs to become a tighter bowler. Till these two spearheads of the Indian attack settle down, this tour remain problematic for the Indian team (no, I haven't forgotten about the batting, but its collapse-loving tendencies have been talked about aplenty).