It's a dog's fight man. Review on India England Test Series 2006

When you are gladiator, you do not fear death in the collossium.

When you are  a warrior, you do not fear death in the Battle field.

If you are a Test Cricketer, you do not fear loss in the stadium.

India loosing the Mumbai test in 1 Hour showed the fear of loss in them and they lost and the Crowd behaved as if it was loss of Blood and not loss of Game.

( Tenny and Ratna have written very neat revs on the series and hence I do not want to repeat the same contents.)

India bashes Pakistan in One Day series and they get hero’s welcome back home. It was  a wonderful victory no doubt but what we see is that we got carried away and more or less the same look team played the Test matches.

What is Test Cricket after all?

Test Cricket is all about Strategy, Game plan, Focus and Concentration over a period of 5 days and requires the right mind and body to strive and survive the toughest of situations. This series has shown us some very good lessons for the future and they are as follows.

Learn from the Englishmen.

Even after sixty years of Independence, we fail to learn from our opposition. Having quality players is very important no doubt but they have proven us that Quality or class alone does not win Test Matches. England did not have their two Best Batsman Trescothick and Vaughan in the line up. They did not have Jones and Giles for support bowling and yet they fought like Tigers. England’s professionalism on the Ground stems from their County experience especially their Four day games.

First of all we failed to respect the opposition and their Bowling strength and we got carried away by Victory in Mohali. The Victory in Mohali needs to be attributed to just three players Dravid, Kumble and Munaf.

In Test Cricket every session is very vital and one bad session turns the tide heavily to the opposition. If you look at the history of the game, most often that not, Teams lose not because they are inferior to the other, but because they play one or two poor sessions.

The Focus comes into play here and it is very vital to understand that it is building Partnerships and holding your wicket very vital for the success.

Bitter shots & Butter fingers

The last test match has seen 11 bitter shots played and 11 catches/stumpings dropped by Indians(Cricinfo has an interesting stat on this-every catch dropped by Indians was worth 17 runs). So the 11 men lost the game. All the basics of Cricket have gone wrong for this Indian Team in Mumbai. Here are 11 glaring reasons for the debacle.

1. Close in field catching was obnoxious. How can you explain Yuvraj dropping so many dollies in Forward short leg. Simply because he is not the right man close in though he may be brilliant at point.

   
   




2. How can you explain Dhoni missing those silly stumpings and catches. Simply because he is not the best Keeper in the Country especially against spin. Karthick was far better.

   
   




3. How can you explain Laxman walking to the pavilion to field the ball . Simply because he cannot run and he should not have been substituting Sehwag and even if so, he should have fielded at slip.

   
   




4. How can you explain Pathan catching Flintoff after crossing boundary. Simply because he did not learn the Australian way of catching and did not bother much about Boundary line.

   
   




5. How do you explain Dhoni’s unfortunate run out. Simply because he moved the bat in an angle towards the crease and not straight and that 1 m sec and umpire’s 50-50 decision cost him.

   
   




6. How do you explain Sehwag getting out to raising balls from Hoggard quite often. Simply because he holds the Bat with hard grip and finds it difficult to counter steep raising balls as his mind frame is to smack in the point boundary all the time. This is where you have to respect the English bowlers. They perhaps have the most versatile bowling attack today and they think the Batsman out.

   
   




7. How do you explain Rahul’s stupid decision to put England in to bat when the Mumbai pitch has proven disastrous for the team playing fourth innings. Simply because he listened to Chappall and he did not have confidence in his batting line up and thought his five bowlers’ strategy will skittle through England. What can the bowlers do if the fielders do not support them?

   
   




8. How can you explain Sachin’s prod at the ball, the first innings way outside the off stick and the second innings an innocuous ball from Udal. Simply because his mind is not in the game and he is for the first time in his life playing in vulnerable zone of a wounded warrior.

   
   




9. How can you explain India’s batting collapse in One hour after lunch losing 7 wickets for 24 runs. Simply not because bizarre as Dravid said. It is because lack of belief and confidence nor will to fight.

   
   




10. How can you explain Pathan’s pathetic shots in both innings? His loss of form in Bowling has creeped into Batting. Being a rythmn bowler, he needs enormous levels of concentration and focus and Munaf and Sreesanth’s performance has crept into dipping of confidence in him. He failed to understand that Cricket is a Team game and he could have contributed immensely with the Bat if he had put his head down.

    
    




11. How do you explain Hrabhajan’s performance in the series and behaviour. An emotional person who needs right mentor plus support and when he drools his bowling becomes pathetic and without the doosra, he becomes too ordinary.

    
    

Back to the future

We have to go back to the fundamentals to look at the future. Funniest part is that India’s mediocre bowling has seen a new lease of life with entry of Munaf, RP and Sreesanth. The Selectors messed up by throwing in Chawla up too early into cauldron at 17 and he has a bright future ahead.

The Batting as always shown as Paper tigers, fully justify it as every series goes by. We need to seriously think about the Opening and Fr*ntline Batting and we need dogs up for the Big fight. Sehwag may score double and treble in flat pitches but will be troubled often by high quality bowlers in good seaming conditions. He is not a natural opener either. Jaffar looked good in placid pitch but struggled in tougher pitches. I think we need to give him time as he has good temperament for Test Cricket. We need Batsman who can grind the Innings and play sessions and Venugopal Rao needs to be looked into. He will be better for Test matches than One Dayers.

Two years down the line, if we do not groom quality Test players then this Indian test cricket will be in deep pits with exit of Sachin, Dravid and Laxman( two of them are already showing signs)

Fielding in Test matches is very different from One dayers and the close catching needs to be looked at very seriously by Chappall.

Test Cricket is all about showing your class and professionalism for five days which requires many ingredients like good running between wickets, placements and accumulating runs in Batting and good placements and thinking every Batsman out with right bowling and fielding strategy in order to get 20 wickets. It does not stem from just brilliance of few individual players which happens in blue moon and consistency is the key.

We are World no3 not because what we did as a Test team today, but two years behind the line. Now it is time to think two years ahead.

Disliamer: This is not a report on the concluded Test series but my reflection on India’s performance.