Apr 01, 2004 02:51 PM
1893 Views
(Updated Apr 17, 2004 03:07 PM)
What a miracle the recently concluded India-Australia series have wrought in the Indian side.
As I write, India have won the first test match against Pakistan at Multan. While we dont know what will happen in the remaining tests, I feel that our success owed much to the recent Australian series experience. Put in another way, if the Pak series were before the australian series, the first test might well have been drawn or lost by India.
So what was the difference?
A great test match is like a chess game between super grandmasters with no time restrictions. Both are great players, both dont make silly mistakes and both know the others game very well. Each player has to play out of his skin through the entire game to wrest small tactical gains and it is only nearing the end game that one side or the other is seen to have a distinct advantage. One careless mistake and the game swings decisively towards the opponent.
The recent India Australia series were great tests. All were bitterly and hard fought with neither side willing to give an inch. One bad session meant a lost test as Australia found out in Adelaide and India at Melbourne. They were wars of attrition with battles being joined in each session.
The Indian team which went to Australia was very different to the one which came back. They came battle hardened in the most demanding theatre. It was a team which recognised that a single catch dropped could cost them a session which lost session could cost them the test. They learnt to bat hard, bowl hard and field hard. And most of all they learnt what team work was all about.
To such players, used to the parsimoniousness of Autralia, Pakistan must seem like a pensioners dream. No balls, bowlers spraying the ball all over the place enabling easy run scoring, dropped catches by the dozen, missed run outs, butter fingered fielders all make for a feast. To the Indians it must be like coming to an oasis after the Australian desert. Far from having to engage in a battle of attrition, the Pakistanis seemed to go out of their way to make life easy out in the middle for the Indian team.
The point of all this is that the Indians have it easy because of the harsh grinding in Australia. Normally, as India proved during the two tests with New Zealand before the aus series, they are as generous as Pakistan when it comes to opportunities lost, lack of discipline in the field or in batting.
An India - Pakistan series is usually about individual brilliance rather than team work because the sub continental teams function that way. It is to cricket what Brazil vs Argentina is in soccer. Similar styles, similar mistakes, similar attacking brilliance and poor defence. But this seems to be heading for a different type of series with contrasting styles. India have successfully combined the riotous samba of Sehwag with the miserly ruthlessness of Kumble to produce a professional, attractive and match winning performance.
The first test has been dominated by India in all departments. India has displayed better batting, better bowling on such flat conditions and infinitely better fielding than Pakistan. This has not been a close test match but a one sided one.
But yet, in terms of talent, there's little to choose between the two sides. Maybe Pakistan has the more inexperienced side but it does not lack in talent. Indeed, in bowling, they have an embarassment of riches far in excess of Indias. India won the first test because they played as a team, played to a plan, played positively, maximising their strengths and trying to cut down on their mistakes. They used their resources better and kept their nerve better.
Unless Pakistan can pull up their socks as a team, I dont think making the pitch lively will ultimately affect the outcome in the remaining two tests.
