There are two ways of looking at the way the Test series panned out for India. Many would like to brush it off attributing it to the Mendis effect and of the ill fated injuries that struck Indian cricket. But there is perhaps a silver lining in that it provides perhaps the insight on the way the Indian think tank should lead cricket into the future.
The contrast was conspicuous. On paper, India were giants and Sri Lanka, a relatively inexperienced outfit in front of India’s colossal facts. Almost all the drum beats focused more on Sachin Tendulkar’s 172 run deficit towards overhauling Brian Lara’s Test runs to become the highest run getter in Test cricket. However, individual success had blinded these very men who elaborated on it even before it was achieved failed to recognize that there was a much bigger picture here – the issue of a series victory abroad and one that perhaps this unique combination of a talented team should have made a habit than an exception. In fact, the batting line up that India has now had for sometime should have been a world beating one; instead somehow there is still a gaping hole between expectations and achievement.
Imagine a line up that has the ingenuity of Tendulkar, the impregnable defense of Rahul Dravid, the flair of Sourav Ganguly and the wristwork of VVS Laxman. Add to that, the whiplash of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and most teams should have turned frail in the knees. Instead what was on view in Sri Lanka left more mouths agape. Even with a rookie bowler like Ajantha Mendia, surely this team, if any, had the wherewithal to bounce back.
Some would argue – they did in the second Test. One look at the performers in the second Test will show only two things – the outstanding batsmen that have been the openers and the resurgence of Harbhajan Singh. Ishant Sharma has been in the reckoning through the series and needs no special mention except for the fact of how feeble the Indian attack looked on the fourth day when Sharma found himself stretched to injury. But for Virender Sehwag’s double hundred, India would have been in the dock and in danger of a clean series sweep. How ignominious that would have been! In fact Sehwag’s innings is also useful because it helps to show in what contrast the rest of the line up batted while he could see the threat negotiated on successive days of the second Test.
Anil Kumble’s own form has become a concern. On turning tracks where the Sri Lankan bowlers were wrecking the opposition line up, he has perhaps had one of the worst patches in his career graph. Then, a la Michael Vaughan, he will want to think whether letting go of the responsibility of leading an ‘elderly statesman’ side that can neither be moulded or blended to a future plan is worth his while at a time when simply concentrating on his bowling may reap richer dividends for the team and for his own milestones. (It must also be noted here that a year ago round about this time Rahul Dravid made the decision and it has since backfired on him as he cuts a pathetic figure of the Wall he once was. His decision to concentrate on his batting has been disdainfully destroyed.) That decision though would be viewed by two primary factors – the opportunity to lead India at home against Australia and also, by the fact that the decision may be taken out of his hands and into the whims of the board that has shown little insight into team building while being adept at amassing unfathomable amounts of money without logic of right investment.
Anil Kumble visibly lashed out at the batsmen and in particular the middle order or the ‘frail four’. The vulnerability was obvious as was the effervescence of the hosts who seemed to want to aspire to greatness. Perhaps as one commentator rightly put it, remaining at the top was proving harder for the team who sat back on its achievements over the team than for a young team that is trying to get to the top.
So, does this mean that the Indian top order is finally feeling satiated or that the team has reached a saturation point? The same commentator alluded that to take a drastic step of dropping some one like Dravid would be “stupid”. It is hard to point fingers when a collective failure has brought about this dire situation. But the board has, in the past, found it easier to axe some of the seniors rather than others only because of the pedigree and the status attached to their name as opposed to others though each has bee a non performer to an extent that they almost balance each other’s failures.
It is another such position that team India find themselves. It will come as no surprise that this team, like team England which fought more indignantly against the inclusion of a rookie fast bowler in Darren Pattinson instead of ‘one of their own’ than against their own hapless failure against South Africa, will in a few months’ time (read about two when Australia arrive in India) will once again be kept together for the simple fear that it would be nothing short of earning the wrath of the public at home where a more embryonic team face the brunt of the Australians.
But it is this kind of thinking from a fearful, failure inducing mindset that has allowed the team to stagnant to an inflexible situation when perhaps a more sustained release of young stars of the future while rotating some of the older ones in a planned succession fashion would have worked not only as a shock absorber but also, as a team building effort, a process in the real sense, a word that was interminably used, misused and abused during the Dravid-Greg Chappell reign to no real fructifying effect.
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