NEWS
MATCH REPORTS
DIARY
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
PEOPLE
ARCHIVES

India draw Test, take series

New Zealand 252/2 in 95 overs, match drawn

There was much talk, in the newspapers this morning, of India's folly in not having enforced the follow-on and gone for the kill.

What kill? A fresh, fully rested bunch of bowlers, on the morning of the fifth day, played fetch-and-carry men while the Kiwi openers put up their first century partnership of the tour -- and in the process, underlined the fact that this pitch was dead as a doornail, the Test likewise.

Let's look at the fifth day's play in light of the relevant statistics. The Kiwi openers -- Gary Stead, fresh out from New Zealand, and Mathew Horne, without a single confidence-building knock in the series thus far, played through the morning session with no problems. Horne pushed and prodded around, but Stead impressed yet again -- he's nice and compact, decisive in going front foot or back, judicious in his shot selection and overall, he makes you wonder what the Kiwis were about, bringing Mathew Bell here and leaving him back home. Stephen Fleming then came out and added another 50, his 21st, to his rather lopsided CV (just 2 centuries in there).

The umpires called it off with 8 overs left to play -- mercy termination of a pointless final hour. Overall, India bowled 95 overs. And got 2 wickets. Had they enforced the follow-on, they would have got a maximum of 34 more overs (42, if you include the eight overs not bowled today). Would that many more overs have produced the result?

The entire follow-on hoo-haa was put in perspective early on, when the bowlers, despite being fully fresh and rested, failed to make a single dent in the New Zealand lineup before lunch. And though the spinners in particular bowled throughout the day with five round the bat (no captain, however aggressive, can put any more men in there without the fielders simply getting in each other's way), there was never a moment in the day's play when any result other than a draw seemed likely. And talking of close-in fielders, think of those five gents -- about now, everyone of them should be in their rooms massaging their hamstrings. Think of squatting on a native-style loo for six hours to get an idea of what it feels like to spend a day in the close catching positions.

Frankly, I found the whole debate about whether or no Sachin should have declared a touch amusing. For two reasons -- one, the thinking that if you can, you should ask the opposition to follow on is knee-jerk. For another, we have, earlier in this series, seen an Indian team, with three spinners on a turning track (backed by two seamers), failed to run through this Kiwi lineup in the fourth innings at Mohali -- given that, was it realistic to expect a four-man attack to perform miracles on this track?

I was arguing this precise point with a friend, on ICQ, and he came back with "In Mohali, if we had a little bit more time, we could have done it". Could we, indeed? I think rather than rely entirely on scoreboards, we need to actually watch the play before making such judgements -- at Mohali, the Indian bowlers were easily held at bay for two sessions on the final day. And it was only after the Kiwis had effectively ensured a draw, that their concentration visibly relaxed and a few wickets fell.

India could have won this Test -- but if we are apportioning blame for the no-result, let's think of where it really belongs, rather than point to the non-enforcement of the follow-on. While on this subject, there is one point I had hoped to see being made in the analytical columns written by former superstars, and which to my disappointment was not touched on. And it is this -- this team has a coach, by name Kapil Dev Nikanj. Who is presumed to have inputs into such strategic calls as follow-ons and stuff. Kapil has been, to put it mildly, a bowler in his time and would have a better perspective than anyone else on what the Indian bowlers could do on this track. Wouldn't logic suggest that Kapil's counsel would have been taken before the Indians decided to bat again?

So where did India fail, to push through a 2-0 result here?

To my mind, the first and most crucial failure occured before the match had begun. It happened when the Indians landed in Ahmedabad, took one horrified look at the grass on the track and demanded that every single blade be plucked out forthwith. At that point, it was a nice seaming track, and would have produced a result. Once the grass was mown, it became a dead batting track, and a draw became almost inevitable.

So the first failure was that of self-confidence. With a batting lineup reading Ramesh, Gandhi, Dravid, Tendulkar, and Ganguly; with three possible seamers to take into the game; with an opposing batting lineup that hadn't exactly distinguished itself thus far, the Indians still didn't back themselves to go in and pull off a win on a seaming track.

Having shut the door on a possible result, India then rammed the bolt home when it picked its playing eleven. On a batting track, which team looking for a result picks an extra batsman over an extra bowler? What was Ajay Jadeja doing in the side?

One question needs asking, here: Was Jadeja picked to play simply so that the selectors could justify having included him in the Test squad in the first place?

By picking him, India lost a berth that could have been given ideally to Mohanty. That lad, by the way, is getting the short end of the Indian cricketing stick. Whenever Srinath or Prasad need rest for some reason, he is pitchforked into leading the attack -- and each time that has happened, he has done well. But when the two main bowlers are back, he is relegated to sitting on the bench, carrying on animated conversations with whoever happens to be sitting next to him. Does this remind you of a period, earlier, when Kapil Dev at the tail end of his career, and Manoj Prabhakar, were the automatic choices while a much-younger, much-fitter, noticeably quicker Javagal Srinath sat on the bench?

The question will be asked -- if four bowlers couldn't do it, what could the fifth do? Examine that question for a moment. First, four bowlers (with some help, but we will get to that later, from the umpires) did do it. They bowled New Zealand out for just over 308 on a pitch on which good international batting sides will back themselves to cruise easily past the 400, 450 mark.

The moot question, though, is how. Srinath, for instance, bowled 1/4th the total number of overs in the Kiwi first innings -- and you don't do that to a pace spearhead, for it reduces him to stock bowler status. Talk to a fast bowler, and he'll tell you that if he is confident that he is going to be given short, brief bursts and used to strike, he will bowl flat out each time he gets the ball. But if he knows that he is also expected to keep one end going for long periods, he will keep something in reserve, bowl well within himself. Which is what Srinath did here, for most of the time -- this being particularly noticeable when he bowled to Fleming, in a spell shorn of the aggression that he has shown, thus far this series, every time the Kiwi skipper faced him.

The fact of there being only four bowlers (but hey, never mind, we got a fantastic point fielder didn't we?!) also lent a certain predictability to the Indian attack -- compounded by a certain quirk in Sachin Tendulkar's mindset. Obstinate is a word you use for Balaam's ass in the bible -- when it comes to Sachin, you find that word can be a touch inadequate at times. Once he gets an idea into his head, he hangs on to that come hell, high water, or stalemate. And his idea here was that it would be great to have spin at one end and seam at the other.

The trouble was, there was no departure from the pattern. The two seamers could have been used with the older ball in tandem, working collectively on the batsmen. Two spinners could have been used in harness, rushing the batsmen by bowling their overs quick, posing different problems at either end.

But no. The rota read Srinath and Harbajan, Prasad and Kumble. By way of varying the menu somewhat, occasionally Srinath would partner with Kumble and Prasad with Harbajan. But that was it. One hour on, one hour off for each paceman in turn was pretty much the pattern followed -- with the result that the seam bowlers settled into their 'stock' roles right from ball one of each spell, while the Kiwis focussed on just blunting each successive spell.

Interestingly, the spinners finally got together in tandem after lunch -- and a strike at either end resulted, after 53 overs of the seam-spin combo being tried.

Had there been that one extra bowler -- either the seam of Mohanty or the spin of Joshi -- the options opened up. The strike bowlers, Srinath and Kumble (one of these days, some Indian captain is going to realise that the best way to use Kumble is in quick bursts, letting him attack and taking him off as soon as any one batsman got to face more than three, four overs from the leggie), could have been used in short, attacking bursts, the other three could, with backup from Ganguly, have shut an end down and attacked at the other as circumstances dictated. At the very least, we wouldn't have a situation where a Kiwi batsman, facing the Srinath-Harbajan combo, walked towards the drinks cart after one hour mentally telling himself, 'Oh right, hour's up, now I can settle to face Prasad and Kumble'.

But no -- the Indians felt they needed the extra batsman, in Ajay Jadeja.

Point number three takes off from something Sanjay Manjrekar mentioned during television commentary, and which was glanced at in our match report of the earlier days -- and that relates to the deliberate way the Indians bowl their overs. "I've played under Sachin, we used to always bowl our overs slow because he likes to get his field placings just right, and makes constant adjustments, so we ended up paying a lot of fines," Manjrekar said.

Fines are not a problem, really -- the board pays them, anyway. The problem is, it gives breathing space to the batsmen. If say Kumble has produced a very good ball and had the batsman groping, you want the next ball to come at him in a hurry. Which doesn't happen, because after that ball, captain and bowler are having a bit of a natter, a few fielders are consulting each other, then millimetric adjustments are being made to the field, and meanwhile, the batsman has had sufficient time to recover from the near disaster of the previous ball, put it behind him, and get his mind on the job of dealing with the next one. When batsmen are under pressure -- and the Kiwis have been just that, throughout this tour -- you need to turn the screws further, hustle them into mistakes. If you bowl 12 overs in an hour (and this, with spin at one end), 'hustle' doesn't quite describe it.

That's three strikes -- which, I believe, is out. Once the pitch was given cosmetic surgery, once the playing eleven was picked, a draw was pretty much on the cards -- the only way India could have forced a result would have been to have bowled the Kiwis out quick on the fourth morning, but that didn't happen and once they played out 44 overs on day four, the Test went into rigor mortis.

A related point is about bowling strategy -- how many off spinners of calibre do we know, and have seen who, with a left hander facing them, will stay over the wicket? When the Indians took two quick wickets out after lunch, there was the faint chance of taking out a third one quick -- and that chance lay in Harbajan bowling into the rough outside Fleming's off stump from around the wicket. But no, the offie persisted on bowling over, which meant Fleming, as in the first innings, could push bat and pad together at it, negate the LBW which an offie pitching leg or outside wouldn't get anyway, and bat himself and his team to safety.

The right arm offie going round the wicket to a left hander, especially with a little bit of rough available, is a basic. Assuming Harbajan is too young and inexperienced to have worked that out, doesn't this team have a captain? A coach?

An unrelated point relates to umpiring -- which, in this particular Test, has been hugely below par. Day one was amusing for the fact that apparently, someone omitted to tell Umpire Ramaswamy that the white line they draw in front of the stumps at the bowling end has a purpose -- Chris Harris for instance was consistently bowling off 20 yards (not that it made much difference at his pace).

Then came a couple of LBW decisions, both against the tourists, in their first innings (and while on that, think of how much more inevitable this draw would have been, had the umpire got those decisions right).

Just to balance things somewhat, the umpire then failed to call Cairns despite the latter's size 11 shoe being a good six inches over the line when he slipped one through Tendulkar and onto the stumps (again, the decision didn't alter the course of this game, merely deprived the crowd of some entertainment). And then, twice in succession on either side of lunch, the selfsame umpire turned down two LBW shouts from Ganguly off Horne for some reason they forgot to include in the rulebook -- the guy was plumb both times and the way Ganguly (duly installed vice captain of the Indian team to Australia, which by the way is a very good choice) appealed, it is a wonder he didn't need to be carried off with apoplexy.

When decisions get this bizarre, it makes you wonder -- do umpires have any built-in accountability? Does the match referee monitor their performance? Does his report, if adverse, ensure that incompetence doesn't get a second innings?

Tailpiece: Perhaps the best thing to have come out of the Ahmedabad adventure is J Y Lele's rapid volte face on the Agarkar issue. Like many vertically challenged persons, friend Lele has a bit of a Napoleon complex in his mental makeup, and it came rather dramatically to the fore with his recent statements on the lines of 'If Kapil is a star, so what, I am the secretary of the BCCI (echoes of Louis the XIV and his l'etat c'est moi?) ... Kapil is a liar... I am the ultimate authority, even the board president has nothing to say in the matter... I will question Kapil when I get to Ahmedabad... et al...

The crux of the matter is that he thought Agarkar had no business being in the Indian nets; that Kapil had no locus standi in deciding who could bowl in the nets; that Agarkar in any case wasn't a good bowler; that Lele didn't trust his medical reports and wasn't convinced that he was fit... and so forth. All this was told to my colleague, Faisal Shariff, late in the evening of the third day.

Lele then got to Ahmedabad. And 'questioned' Kapil.

The result? Agarkar goes to Australia. And Lele, no less, says while announcing the team, that Agarkar has submitted his fitness certificate, that he has bowled over 80 overs in Times Shield matches, and that he is fully satisfied Agarkar is fully fit. As they say on the parade ground, 'Right about turn!'

Kapil, last seen, didn't look particularly chastened, either.

Lele being cut to size (knowing the unsquashable nature of the guy, I'm sure he'll bounce right back soon enough and provide further amusement) is reason enough to celebrate -- perhaps even more so than an Indian win.

Scoreboard