England's win based on magnificent collective will
The tribute and respect England won at The Oval flowed partly from some exceptional talent, but it had a different kind of foundation and impetus, says James Lawton, writing in the Independent .
Nikita Bastian
25-Feb-2013
The tribute and respect England won at The Oval flowed partly from some exceptional talent, but it had a different kind of foundation and impetus, says James Lawton, writing in the Independent.
It was based on a magnificent collective will and understanding. It grew from an acceptance that the past was too littered with mediocrity, too many teams who were not prepared to work hard enough, and maybe not suffer enough, for the goal of one day announcing themselves as the best in the world.
Shane Warne, writing in the Daily Telegraph, says England will now have a big bullseye on their back as the No. 1 team in the world and must retain their hunger to remain at the top.
When you are the best, everyone sees you as the benchmark. They chase you and work out ways to hunt you down. So it is important England stay hungry and start to dominate.
India simply weren't up for the fight, says Steve James writing in the Daily Telegraph, and, subsequently, England embarrassed them.
They [India] were knackered. But just as crucially they thought they were knackered. And once that mindset was adopted, they stood no chance. We should not forget that there were periods early in the series when India competed fiercely. But they were only short periods. They simply could not sustain a challenge. By contrast England never dipped in their intensity. Their standards of fitness and fielding were so far ahead of those of the Indians that it was embarrassing.
Kunal Pradhan, writing in the Mumbai Mirror, says even if India were match-fit, which match were they fit for?
A common refrain when a player is returning from injury or vacation is that it doesn’t matter if he’s fit, but if he’s match-fit. That refrain now needs to be modified in cricket’s post-Twenty20 avatar: He may be match-fit, but which match is he fit for. If you wake up RP Singh in the middle of the night after a non-stop flight to London from a holiday in Miami, and ask him to bowl four overs, he’ll do it without breaking into a sweat, and even get a couple of wickets. It’s when you tell him to bowl 25 overs with the field up that the problem begins.
As a result of England's 4-0 victory, Ted Corbett in the Hindu writes that cricket, which had taken third place behind Premier League football and the coming Olympic Games in the country, is at an all-time high in the public estimation.
An editorial in the Indian Express looks at how Rahul Dravid stood tall among India's ruins during the Test series.
... Quite wonderfully, this ignominious rout reminded us this team [India] includes not just the highest run-maker (and century-scorer) in Test history but also the second-highest. Rahul Dravid drove, flicked and cut his way to his sixth century on English soil in the first innings of the Oval Test, and forced us to confront the fact that he, as wicketkeeper, slip fielder, batsman and inspiration, has been the bedrock of his team’s successes for 15 years.
Karthik Krishnaswamy, writing in the same paper, runs through India's list of injured and underprepared.
Nikita Bastian is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo