India, Beware !

Without any doubt the appointment of Bob Woolmer by the Pakistan Cricket Board was a result of defeat to India and an element of 'Let's do what they have done to improve...' .

Pakistani's play their cricket with vengeance and against India, it's all the more intense and revengeful. Their incessant inferiority complex makes them give their best against India. Now it's very clear after the Asia Cup, that their prime motive is to beat India in India in the coming year and looks like the brief given to Bob Woolmer is, - beat India first. No wonder there was all round happiness and glee when they beat India in Asia Cup, and in their intensity to do that , they just overlooked the bonus point issue. Right after that, it's clear that Bob was smarting from that mistake. After that, right through the tournament all what Bob has done is talk about Bonus point not being correct et al;

Bob Woolmer has not missed a moment and opportunity about the bonus point not being fair, in every media brief and all the column's he has written after that. At this point it appears that Bob Woolmer and PCB would concentrate the most on beating India, unlike John Wright and the BCCI, who focussed on improving India's overall performance.

Bob Woolmer and Hansie Cronje made a perfect pair. They played percentage cricket and had almost monotonous, uni-dimensional but disciplined approach to cricket. I never liked the brand of cricket that South Africa played under these two. Highly intense and too focussed on a particular opponent(0Australia in this case). They, I suspect, in that process stopped enjoying their cricket , their revengeful and intense attitude frequently let them down in crucial situations whereas the Aussies thoroughly enjoyed the competitiveness and were far creative and joyful in their approach to the game. Not for once did Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer ever appreciate the opponents , but that's one thing they were far behind Vis a Vis Aussies. Aussies play hard, very hard, we all know that, but they never hesistate in appreciating if the opponents have played well. They push you to the wall and bring the best out of you. In that process if one does well, they are liberal in praise and in their behaviour.

The first sign of improvement happens when one when accepts their shortcomings, only then there is genuine improvement possible. Bob and Hansie never did that, that's why they never beat Aussies. Aussies do that frequently and keep winning frequently. Bob should first accept that they overlooked the bonus point, which was a mistake, instead he keeps criticising the tournament rules rather than acknowledge the mistake.

But one thing is very clear the entire PCB, the Pak players and Bob are focussed on India. Bob wrote about some strategies that India would adopt in Finals, before the Asia Cup Final and by the end of first half of the match, I reckon he's absolutely bang on target. It's very clear that he is studying the Indian team for the sole purpose of beating them. That's what his brief is.

Pakistani's need no extra motivation when they play India, on top of it they have been well and truly beaten by Indians in their own den last season, Pakistanis are right now stung with envy and want to replicate our success and finally they have somebody like Bob Woolmer, who can be extremely focussed, on a particular opponent, to the point of obsession. All this is a very potent combination. Bob and Inzamam actually are a better combination than the negative Hansie and Bob's brand of boring cricket. Pakistan's flair and unpredictability would negate anything boring and monotonous that Bob might come up with.

Here's a situation where we have a team of people who are doing nothing but watching every move of ours and would not hesistate to take advantage of any of our shortcomings.We have a huge challenge, ahead. India, Beware.