Had Tendulkar been rested?

Well Bangladesh is one of the teams against which not only does the opposition team give a second thought before imposing a follow on but also one such team against which captains most of the times rest their key players and go in for a secondary attack. However, had Dhoni gone in for the same decision mistake, one would have seen Bangladesh giving hopes to the cricketing world about their maiden test victory at home irrespective whether this happens or not. If the first day's play is considered, two of the Bangladeshi bowlers in Shakib and Shahadat were enough to destroy the Indian batting.

Despite 8 wickets falling at the end of the day, if at all some hopes of an Indian win needs to be still kept in mind; it has to be solely because of Sachin Tendulkar especially in this match. It is a shame for a team that is at present the number one team in ICC test rankings to fight hard to survive even against a Bangladesh team that is placed in a position that is exactly opposite of India at number 9 in test rankings. Whatever, it was clearly underestimation that team India showed on the first day of the test match.

Added to this was the slight improvement that Bangladesh have show the world over the years which together combined to give India a shock on the first day's play. Though Virender Sehwag became the second highest score for India after he scored 52 runs, one aspect that needed to be given importance in test cricket was found to be forgotten by him. Sehwag did work hard to score 52 runs but at the same time played just 51 balls with just the strike rate making news and no decent partnership. A little bit of common sense from Sehwag would have seen a 200 run partnership.

And those that followed were just a cycle stand effect with every cycle falling with the first one being given a gentle push. Some big names like Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh etc were far below par compared to what was expected from them. It is now clear that at times batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar are made rather than born when the entire team falls so cheaply leaving the tempo to be run by just one man who at most of the times is serious in his work. If Bangladeshi bowlers were that good, how come not more than two of them could continue the good work?