Blessing in disguise, a cricket story

By John Cheeran
It often happens that a patient dies not getting correct treatment at the right time.
England was lucky during the Test series against India that their players’ injuries were not concealed. Injury and some other circumstances denied England four of its senior players and many feared that England would be weakened for it.
But that, then, was England team management’s fortune.
Things quite often do not happen the way we think or plan.
If England was not beset with injuries, poor form would have caught up with players such as Michael Vaughan, Marcus Trescothick, Simon Jones and Ashley Giles. And team management would have been tempted to keep them in the side, taking into account of their former glory.
And what happened?
All their replacements came good.
Alastair Cook scored a century, Owais Shah played two crucial knocks to set up the Mumbai win while seamer James Anderson and unheralded spinner Shaun Udal took crucial wickets.
It was the misfortune of Indian skipper Rahul Dravid that some of his players were not replaceable for being fit! Injuries to them would have been a blessing.
So Sachin Tendulkar admits his shoulder injury only after the writing on the wall became crystal clear to him. If not, VVS Laxman or Mohammad Kaif could have played in Tendulkar’s place and who knows, India could have won the series.
I’m sure, in any case, the disgrace of 100 all out would not have happened.
India would have been blessed if opener Virender Sehwag were to sit out of the Tests series with an injury. Someone else eager to get into the Indian team would have given his life while fielding and batting which would have been a relief for a harried skipper Dravid.
The same goes for off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.
Harbhajan was thoroughly out of form during the series and his absence would have served team’s cause of series triumph.
As Indian batting collapsed on the last day of the Mumbai Test, VVS Laxman and Kaif were chewing their nails. They should have been out there in the middle but India did not have England’s luck of injuries!
And I will think about Yuvraj Singh’s contribution as a batsman and fielder for quite some time in the series. To drop more than four crucial catches and a dismal run with the bat are not the qualities required to keep one’s place in the India team.
Kaif, please take note.