To the Lanka Tests as underdogs

The Indian team for the Test series has just been announced. Although there were no real surprises in the team, a look at its composition would suggest that there could be a few glaring loopholes, especially in the bowling department.

This Indian cricket team is going through a very critical phase. The series win against Australia had convinced even the diehard pessimists that maybe, just maybe, this team had it in them to actually build on that win and go on to repair a rather dismal away performance record. A lot was written about the team after that series, most of it complimentary.

"This is a young team," they said. "This is a team of the new millennium." (As an aside on that, Azharuddin's team was supposed to be the team of the nineties. It didn't accomplish much either. So much for tags!).

This team will finally do what hasn't been done before, go boldly where very few Indian teams have gone before, viz., go abroad and actually win a Test series. The last time that an Indian team had done that outside of the Indian subcontinent was in 1986 when Kapil's team beat the Poms 2-0 in a three-Test series.

So, off the team went to Zimbabwe, to try and find that elusive Test series win in the African hinterland. It started off well enough for them. They managed to win the first Test. The second Test started off well enough but then, one hour of madness and mayhem, utterly destroyed any chance they had of claiming that series win. One hour, that dumped every Indian supporter from the heights of optimism to the uncaring depths of pessimistic gloom.

"We knew it!," smirked the pessimists. "We told you this would happen, didn't we?," they chortled with glee. It was always thus, they claimed, bringing out that worn out cliché once again. "This team can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

And so the beleaguered team came back home, with a lot of sheen taken off of them. The much-vaunted batting line-up failed to fire. Even Sachin Tendulkar, by his own exalted standards, failed. So disgusted were the Indian supporters that even Gavaskar, who would count himself as Sachin's numero uno fan, lashed out at his batting in the second Test, comparing him to his disadvantage with Steve Waugh.

There were a few plusses though that emerged from the Zimbabweam jaunt. Shiv Sundar Das was obviously one of them. The plucky opener showed that he could adapt his batting to suit the conditions. Where the Laxmans and Gangulys of the team disappointed with their approach, he was the only one, apart from Tendulkar, who showed any application. With Ramesh failing once again, the emergence of S S Das is surely a godsend for the Indian team. He is a very correct batsman, in the Gavaskar mould, (in fact he idolizes the man and supposedly has tried to consciously copy the Master's style while batting) and has in abundance that first requirement for an opening batsman: patience.

The other significant gain coming out of this tour was the emergence, or should I say re-emergence, of Ashish Nehra as a leading strike bowler for India. Although he had shown much promise a couple of years ago in that one-off Test against Sri Lanka, for some inexplicable reason (actually, not so inexplicable if one keeps in mind that it is the Indian selectors we are talking about), he was not given a look-see before this series. Be that as it may, he grabbed the chance offered to him with both hands and easily emerged as the best Indian bowler on view.

Although the Indian team did not come back with that elusive series win, it must be borne in mind that they did not come back with a series defeat. Yes, the series was against the minnows of cricket, Zimbabwe, but the Indians haven't really done well against them on their home grounds. If this sounds rather defeatist, it is probably because of the conditioning that followers of Indian cricket are subjected to resulting from the dismal Indian performance overseas over the past decade-and-a-half.

This is precisely the reason that the forthcoming Test series is that much more important for the Indian team. This is probably the first time in the history of Indo-Lankan cricket that the Indian team will be going into a series as the underdog. That is not a position that the Indians are familiar with vis-à-vis the Lankans but definitely one that they would be comfortable with given the current situation.

The Indian team has been hit with a spate of injuries to certain key players. Laxman needs arthroscopic surgery on his knees and is going to miss the series. So too is Nehra, with a groin injury. Zaheer, though suffering from a stress fracture on his shin, has been retained in the squad. One wonders whether the selection committee isn't being a trifle short-sighted in this regard. Tendulkar is also out with an injury, but, fortunately for the Indians, is expected to be back in time for the Test matches.

The Indian bowling line-up looks a little weak. Javagal Srinath, for all his so-called experience, was a major disappointment and if he doesn't do something significant in the coming series, his place could very well be in jeopardy, what with Harvinder, Mohanty, Nehra, Zaheer and Agarkar breathing down his neck. With Nehra being ruled out of the series and Zaheer playing on an injured leg, India has to choose from Srinath, Harbhajan, Rahul Sanghvi, Bahutule, Prasad and Harvinder. Agarkar's exclusion from the squad is acceptable on account of his non-performances, but how does one justify the exclusion of Mohanty? The fatuous reasoning of the selectors is that since the ball isn't going to be swinging a lot, Mohanty, wouldn't make much of a difference to the side. One then begs to ask the question: why has Prasad been included in this squad? Not for his speed, surely! If it is his experience that the selectors are counting on, then they need to be reminded that the last time Prasad toured Sri Lanka, Jayasuriya and company scored more than nine hundred runs in one innings. Harvinder has performed reasonably well in the recent past and deserves a chance and hence his selection is not one that one would like to quibble about.

Given the nature of the pitches in Sri Lankan (the slow, slower and slowest varieties), it would be very surprising if the Indians went in with more than two seamers. Srinath, being an automatic selection (for historical reasons), that leaves one of, Harvinder, Zaheer and Prasad to choose from, none of whom are really expected to do much under the circumstances. Ganguly might even opt to open the bowling with Srinath in order to include an extra batsman in the side.

The spin bowling depends on Harbhajan to a large extent. Sharandeep, who has matured over the past couple of seasons, should have been picked in my opinion, but to honestly expect the Indian brains trust to pick two off-spinners in the side was to expect a little too much. Rightly or wrongly, the Indian selectors, since the days of Prasanna and Venkataraghavan, have always believed that having two spinners with the same style in the side leads to redundancy. Thus, the selectors have gone in for Sairaj Bahutule and left arm spinner Rahul Sanghvi in order to give the bowling attack more "variety", whatever that means.

In view of the fact that the Indian bowling attack looks a little thin, the Indians would be hoping that the batting would bail them out by scoring tons of runs (aah, but then again, if wishes were horses etc.). Since S S Das has made the opening slot his own now, it only remains to solve the other half of the opening puzzle. Although Ramesh hasn't done anything of note recently, he makes it to the team for lack of an alternative. People have for a while been talking of the youngster from Mumbai, Vinayak Mane, who impressed against an Aussie attack, spearheaded by McGrath, but that has not happened, much to my dismay, I must add. Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly pick themselves; the last named picking himself because of the fact that he is the captain. Hemang Badani and Mohammad Kaif would be fighting for the sixth batting slot. Kaif would probably make it to the final eleven, since he is seen as more of a Test batsman than Badani.

Sameer Dighe is the wicketkeeper of choice for the present and to give him his due, he has proven himself to be a fighter and should be persisted with. That leaves just the four slots for the bowlers. Hence my Indian eleven for the first Test would be:

1. S. S. Das
2. S. Ramesh
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Sourav Ganguly ( captain)
6. Mohammad Kaif
7. Sameer Dighe (wicketkeeper)
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Sairaj Bahutule
10. Javagal Srinath/Zaheer Khan (Srinath would make it based more on seniority than on performance)
11. Rahul Sanghvi
This team might not be able to bowl the Lankans out twice in a Test match, but they should at least be able to bat themselves into a position from where they can't lose. But will they transform potential into results? Only time will tell.

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Mail Arun Krishnan