By now, you'd be aware of some of the reasons given for India's loss in the 6th ODI at Jamshedpur.

1. Inexperienced bowling attack
2. Sehwag and Kaif out of form
3. Poor batting by India's top order

The first two factors were in the control of the selectors before the match. The selectors chose to rest Pathan and Agarkar to provide experience for Vikram Singh and Munaf Patel. They also chose to rest Dravid from the team that won the 4th ODI instead of dropping either Sehwag or Kaif. They took that risk and have to be held accountable for the consequences. If India had won, they would get the plaudits.

Of course, their decision to rest Dravid and Pathan messed up the top-order with Dhoni elevated to open and Raina moving up one place to number five. Dravid and Pathan had made 111 runs between them in the 4th ODI so it was risky to rest two in-form players. However, it's up to the batsmen to adjust their game to the circumstances which Dhoni did very well. The other four batsmen made 25 runs between them. Given this scenario most of the responsibility to bat well was with Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh but they failed. Although the selectors messed up the top-order India could still have escaped with a win had they selected a more experienced bowling attack to exploit England's top-order problems. With Flintoff rested, England had to re-jig their top five with Bell coming in and Solanki moving up the order. In the end it was England's bowlers who exploited the bouncier wicket which was the difference between the two sides.

After the match, Strauss said he preferred to look at this match as one that England won through their bowling rather than one that India lost but he also said, "This was the quickest track of the series in terms of pace and bounce, and it probably suited our bowlers more than it suited the Indians." However, on a wicket which was deemed to be good for batting, Sehwag said, "We did not bat well at all. If even one of the top-order batsmen had been associated in a significant partnership (with Dhoni) at the start of the innings, it could have been an exciting game. The main reason for today's defeat was our batting failure."

So, Sehwag wasn't prepared to give credit to England's bowling for their failure. But he acknowledged that his own bowlers lacked experience and "so they couldn't deliver."

Sometimes luck plays a part in ODI results but the only dropped catch I am aware of was a sitter dropped by Collingwood off Kaif in the fifth over. I'm not aware of any poor umpiring decisions, either. So, I don't believe luck advantaged either side in this match.

So, the question of the poll is "Can India be excused for losing the 6th ODI?" Although both sides lost experienced players from the 4th ODI, India's team still had more ODI matches between them:

4th ODI: India - 1103 ODIs; England - 487 ODIs
6th ODI: India - 622 ODIs; England - 359 ODIs

If experience counts for anything then India still had the advantage in that department. There is no doubt that the gap in experience between the two sides closed significantly and was probably a factor in India under-performing but can that be used by India as an excuse for losing. I don't think so because the selectors knew they were selecting a much less experienced team. They must accept the responsibility for that. How much responsibilty they should accept for the loss is difficult to judge but while Sehwag excused the inexperienced bowlers he didn't excuse the batsmen.

I think the pitch helped england more than the others, a bit of pace and bounce was always going to help mahmood and anderson. Indias batting was never going to look as good without dravid and pathan, so I'd put it down to a combination of the two. That said, I'm sure Pathan would have loved bowling on a track like that too !

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Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

I think India can be excused from not winning this 6th ODI for the simple reason the pressure was off, the series had been won.
You might say this is not professional, well most times (not counting 2005) when anyone has beaten Australia, it has only been a consalation prize, because by that time - Australia have won the series 99% of the time, so the same question would apply there, myself I just think that players lose concentration when a series is won.

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Ern

To Mike do you think India have got a divine right to win every match?. By India resting the players it evened it up abit so both teams instead of just England started resembling the second string.

I'm in agreement with you Ern, certainly the players will not have had the same drive and determination because the series had already been won. Had the series still been in the balance (irrelevant of the fact that India would have fieled Dravid et al) then I feel that those players would have performed better.

I think it is a psychological thing rather than physical, once you know that you have won a match/series you can still put 100% effort into all that you do but sometimes you don't have the same determination to succeed and win.

Credit should go to England's bowlers, they bowled well with conditions being favourable for their bowling attack, however India did not apply themselves quite as much as they could have done and were probably 60 runs short of what they could have been.

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Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

Crunchy, in a recent thread which has now been deleted, it was suggested that England make excuses for losing. The inference was that England are whingers for making lots of excuses. So, the purpose of my post is to show that any team can be beaten depending on the circumstances. It's easy for biased opposition fans to accuse the other team for being whingers but, as this example shows, there were mitigating reasons why India under-performed. Most of it had to do with the selection policy of playing an inexperienced attack and resting in-form batsmen while playing out-of-form batsmen. The other factor which sealed India's fate was the ability of the England bowlers to swing and seam the ball with pace on that pitch which the Indian batsmen struggled with.

I hope to start a similar thread for every match so that biased members of this board will see that excuses can be justified and whinging is not limited to one team or their fans.

I think we might just let them off with a day or two in the stocks.

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Just what is going off out there?

Not one of those pace-bowlers played more than 15 one-dayers.

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Karthik Venkatesan

Thats perfectly alright. India needs to prepare for the next world cup. We need a strong team as well as a strong bench. We need to give experience to the younger ones. If that comes at the cost of few losses, its worth it, specifically when we have already won the series. I believe we need a back up keeper for the WC.

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My computer can beat me at chess.....but its no match for me at kick boxing.

If u thnk about it, the whole series has actually been fairly close. I don't think people appreciate the fact that England should have easily won the first ODI and the third was very close and this sixth was simply coming

Egland are still a good ODI team