Confidence booster

Amit Varma

This has been a weekend of fascinating contests; Bush Vs Gore, Lewis Vs Tua, Tiger Woods Vs Tiger Woods (Woods lost), Sonia Vs Jitendra Prasad, India Vs Bangladesh. Some were one-sided, some were cliffhangers, and while the first might have a bearing on the shape of the world, the last was not quite as significant.

It would be a bit uncharitable to say that India supported Bangladesh's inclusion into Test cricket so that we could finally win a Test series (sic) abroad; let's look at the bright side of things here, without the cynicism that so often comes as part of the package deal of being an Indian cricketing fan. It was a good warm-up match for India, against a talented team on their home surface, and gave us a chance to build our confidence and get some practice before the home series against Zimbabwe.

Bangladesh was always going to lose this match; they have some pretty decent talent in their team, but nothing to match the Indians. Plus, they had no international experience playing the longer format of the game. Given this, they played at the peak of their form, on a familiar pitch, in front of a home crowd, and the fact that they were fired up for their first Test combined with some lacklustre play from the Indians to make them even look like winning at one point. They scored 400, had the Indians tottering at 188 for 5, and were bowling extremely well on a pitch tailor-made for their spinners. In fact, out of the first 10 sessions of play, into the fourth day, you could say that Bangladesh had an upperhand in 8 if not 9.

But the Indians finally got it together, and crushed the Bangladeshis, with a refreshingly good bowling performance in the 11th session. Spearheaded, rather unusually, by Ajit Agarkar. On a pitch not providing him with much assistance, he bowled with excellent control over line and length, and was quite happy to pepper the batsmen with short-pitched deliveries. He also got his reverse swing working beautifully, and now that the yorker seems to finally be a part of his arsenal, he looks like developing into a world-class all-rounder.

Did I say all-rounder? The man who got a string of zeroes in Australia, who's got a miserable batting average in both forms of the game, all-rounder? Well, look at it this way; Agarkar started off in life as a batsman who could bowl, played that role to a hilt in the India under-19s and the India A matches in his time, and was an excellent middle-order batsman for Mumbai when he got selected for India. As a batsman who could bowl. (The twists of history: remember Mohinder Amarnath entering the Indian team as an opening bowler in '69?)

Of course, things went horribly awry from there. While as a bowler, he found, probably to his surprise, that he was expected to be one of India's mainline bowlers, as a batsman he just couldn't make the grade. While in one-dayers he went through that typical situation of coming in too late in the order to make much of an impact, in Tests, he seemed paralysed by the burden of expectation he placed upon himself. Australia was a disaster, and while he got a lot of wickets in the shorter version of the game, he also had a bad economy rate: sooner or later, it seemed, that his lack of control was bound to see the end of him, once the wickets dried up. But the frail-looking Agarkar seems out to prove he's made of sterner stuff.

While his bowling in Nairobi and Sharjah was very good (Control, aggression, bowling well at the death), he seems to have taken it a notch further with his fine bowling in this Test. And while he batted reasonably well, he clearly seems hungry for more, for a long stint out in the middle, to show that he's not part of a tail which wags well, but has bite to his bark as well.

Which brings us to the latest dilemma sure to face the selectors soon; against Zimbabwe, India might well opt to go with three spinners and two pacers, or two of each kind, on the spinner-friendly Indian tracks. So if one of the quicks need to be dropped from the team, who goes? Srinath, who looked short of match practice in the first innings, but looked his usual lethal self in the second? Or Zaheer, our quickest bowler with a great attitude and an aggro Indian cricket desperately needs? Or Agarkar? Whatever the selectors eventually decide, it's certainly pleasant to be faced with a surfeit of riches!

And what about the spinners? Joshi was superb in both innings, though pitches like this can make a good spinner look world-class. He's finally getting his due, which is great, but what about Kartik? Kartik was grossly under-bowled by Ganguly throughout the match, and not given spells long enough to even settle into a rhythm, despite bowling well in the opportunities he got. (like a superb three over spell on the morning of the second day.)

Ganguly's treatment of Kartik was bizarre; it was almost like Ganguly had wanted to go into the match with four bowlers and the extra batsman in Laxman, the rest of the management outvoted him, and to prove he could win the match with four bowlers, he under-bowled the fifth. Pure conjecture, of course, and even Zaheer was underbowled by Ganguly on the second day, whose captaincy was just not aggressive enough at times. He got away with it against Bangladesh, but what about the bigger tests that lie ahead in the future?

As for the batting, nothing meaningful emerged in the match, no major revelations, though Shiv Sunder Das must be ruing missing the opportunity to cement his place in the side by playing a long innings on a good batting pitch. He's still got Zimbabwe ahead of him, and this writer, for one, believes that he's the real McCoy, a genuine opening batsman who's going to serve us for a long time to come. Joshi and Agarkar got some useful batting practice, which should serve them in good stead if India get into trouble later on in this season.

And ah, out of the surfeit of debutants in this match, there was one whose Test cricketing days should be over with his first match: Saba Karim. Karim, with numerous fumbles at regular intervals (all of which surely can't be blamed on bad bounce), was a parochial choice to begin with, included at the instance of Ganguly, and he has the rare distinction of being a cricket commentator before playing his first Test match! He seems certain to make way for Dahiya now, who's opened the batting for the Board President's Eleven against Zimbabwe and made a quickfire 50. A welcome change.

So lots to look forward to then, some good cricket coming up against Zimbabwe, by which time, hopefully, the US should have a new president-elect. Who're you with? Me, I love this chaos, and I'm with the democrats; I just love blood and gore!

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