A frantic salvage operation is on by coach Greg Chappell to ensure the tour does not end up as a complete disaster and there is a turnaround in the team's fortunes sooner than later.
Chappell is having a one-on-one meeting with most members of the side, besides collective exhorting, in order to stem the tide threatening to engulf the touring Indian cricket team.
The third successive loss at Port Elizabeth on Wednesday was as damning and morale-crushing for Chappell as everyone else. Insiders claim the Aussie has never been spotted so incensed and livid as he was that evening when India lost the series with a 80-run margin.
Chappell had asked his batsmen to last the quota of overs rather than go for heroics before the start of the game but as it turned out, the batters did exactly the opposite.
The Indians were four down for 39 inside the first 13 overs and by the time the final wicket of S Sreesanth fell, the side had been bowled out in 39-odd overs.
Chappell was highly upset, understandably so, at this capitulation but he kept his counsel to himself and is now urging everyone to give off his best.
His message is loud and clear to everyone in a team whose seniors have to be blamed as much as the juniors for the abject surrender in the series so far.
Since the start of the tour, and even before it, Chappell had made a number of moves to lift the side out of its morass.
If engaging sports psychologist Rudi Webster of West Indies before the tour was not enough, he showed a movie named "Miracle" to the entire side just before the tour opener in Benoni.
The movie documents the performance of a US team against USSR in ice hockey in 1980 where they won against all odds and in the process, a lot of sacrifices were made including the one on his personal life by the coach.
In the absence of Rahul Dravid due to injury, the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag too have not played the part which has accentuated the problem of Indian cricket team.
Sehwag though has reportedly thrown no tantrums at being stripped of vice-captaincy for the oncoming Test series.
The Delhi batsman is leading India in the absence of Dravid in the remaining one-dayers as well as the Twenty20 match scheduled later in the day.
Interestingly, at this moment the vice captain of the side is Sachin Tendulkar though VVS Laxman, who arrived here this morning, has been officially named as vice-captain of the Test series.
Tendulkar, whose disinterest in captaincy is long known, surprisingly agreed to be the vice-captain. Apparently the decision was taken after a meeting between the team management on its own. According to team sources, no opinion was sought from the selectors on the issue.
