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November 25, 1997
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A turn for the worse?
Prem Panicker
Do you get the feeling that in Indian cricket sometimes -- maybe even most times -- the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing?
Consider this: for months now, we have all known that the Sri Lankan team is due to play a series of three Tests on Indian soil. Anybody with the barest modicum of cricketing sense has known, too, that if the Indian team has an edge over the visitors, it is in the medium pace department.
It most definitely is not in spin, as the most cursory glance at our lineup of spinners will indicate. Anil Kumble is yet to rediscover his striking ability -- his inability to get wickets on a turning fifth day wicket at Mohali being the latest proof. Rajesh Chauhan is a decent support bowler at best, but not even his best friend sees him as capable of running through a side even on the most helpful of tracks -- and most certainly not against sub-continental batsmen who are weaned on spin and know how to use their feet and negate whatever vagaries there are in the wicket. And Nilesh Kulkarni, while definitely promising, is certainly not the sort of spinning basket you want to put all your eggs in just yet.
So it boils down to the quicks. To Srinath, back from an injury layoff and bowling as well as ever. To Venkatesh Prasad, back from injury layoff but yet to earn the confidence of his team and of the board. To Abey Kuruvilla, who battles his own personal crises of confidence and gets it right often enough to get wickets when they count. And to Debashish Mohanty, whose marked swing bowling went unrewearded, and whose anguished glances heavenwards were dramatic enough to interest Bollywood movie producers.
Now, the BCCI has various committees. One for each function. Each manned by five 'honorary' officials who get upwards of Rs 20,000 per month for their 'honorary' services.
One such committee is the pitches committee. The general impression seems to be that this committee was only meant to dig up existing pitches and prepare fast ones for the future. Now, if that were true, then a question needs asking -- since that work is going to be done only in May-June 1998 as per BCCI secretary J Y Lele, why should the committee exist -- and its members be paid -- now?
Obviously, the committee has a larger role to play. It is under this committee that the preparation of pitches in India come. And the committee is headed by no less than Kapil Dev -- who, more than most, is aware of just what a seam attack needs from a wicket.
So tell me, why is the Vidharbha Cricket Association pitch, in Nagpur, where India meets Sri Lanka for Test number two of the Pepsi series beginning Wednesday, giving every indication that it will be a slow turner?
What this does is create a situation where India has to go in with two, maybe three, spinners, none of whom can really rip through a side even on the most favourable of pitches.
Of the two sides, it is in fact Sri Lanka that is better capable of exploiting a spinning track. Muralitharan is a top quality off spinner, Jayanta Silva is a talented youngster who, given the right conditions, can exploit them to the hilt, Kumara Dharmasena's nagging accuracy makes him the perfect foil to his more aggressive colleagues, and Sanath Jayasuriya, when not bowling three feet outside leg stump, is capable of getting turn and bite.
All of which raises, in my mind, a question -- just what are the authorities about to prepare pitches that suit the visitors more than they suit us?
On a tangential track, I was much struck by an image from the dying moments of the final day's play of the first Test. Umpire Venkatraghavan stood in mid pitch, his hand raised, holding a light meter. Next to him stood umpire Steve Bucknor. And in the foreground, dark, brooding, and dramatically silhouetted against the looming clouds, stood the giant light towers of Mohali -- in total darkness, of course.
Now, the ICC has permitted the use of lights in Test matches, in case of bad light affecting play. At Mohali, light robbed the Indian side of six overs on day four, when Srinath was on fire, and again, of 20-plus overs at the end of day five. And even earlier, post tea, when India was in a position to take the second new ball, Tendulkar was forced to use the spinners because the umpires deemed that the light was not good enough for batsmen to play Srinath and company.
Typically -- or do I mean ideally? -- the technical committee (oh yes, the BCCI has a technical committee as well, headed by no less than Sunil Gavaskar) -- would have, immediately on receipt of the ICC notification, evaluated the option of using lights, checked out the various centres where the facility does exist (Mohali and Bombay, two of the three venues being used in the ongoing series, both have the option) and then recommended to the Board that the option be worked into the playing conditions for the Pepsi Series.
None of this was done. In fact, the technical committee did not meet even once in the 12 months of its existence. When asked why, the honourable Jayant Lele, speaking on behalf of the committee, said, "Because there was nothing for it to discuss".
Amazing. The game is changing, evolving, new rules are being introduced, new tactics being evolved by the opposition, it is all happening out there. And yet the technical committee has "nothing to discuss". Why, then, is it in place? Why are the five members of the committee, between them, drawing as honorarium a sum in excess of Rs 1.2 million per year?
Like I said, that was just a tangential thought. To get back to the cricket, Sachin Tendulkar and Anshuman Gaikwad, after examining the VCA pitch on Tuesday, have announced their 12 for the morrow. Essentially, they have dropped Debashish Mohanty from the eleven that played at Mohali, and brought in both Venkatesh Prasad and Nilesh Kulkarni.
What this means is that the batting lineup is going to remain essentially unchanged, with Sidhu and Mongia in all probability doing duty as openers. While on this subject, I still believe that regular batsmen should open, and would like to see either Dravid or Ganguly do the job. In fact, getting either of those young men to partner Sidhu means that the other can bat at three -- Ganguly, in the previous game, was distinctly wasted at number six. The ideal is to have the wicket keeper bat in that slot, as buffer between the last recognised batsman and the tailenders -- and that is a bet the Indians are missing out on now.
However, neither Tendulkar nor Gaikwad would commit on the composition of the bowling lineup. It could, they indicated comprise two quicks and three spinners, or vice versa.
Given the way the pitch appears, it is likely that India will go in with the three-spinners option. In other words, go in to the Test with three bowlers, none of whom are liable to prove a match-winner. Worse, it will have to make a choice between Kuruvilla, who is known to lack variety but possess the ability to take wickets, and Prasad, who scores in terms of variety, forms an ideal strike-pairing with Srinath, but is a bit of an unknown in terms of match form, having sat out the last couple of months with injury.
The bottomline, thus, is that the Indian attack has only one real star -- Javagal Srinath. And he will be bowling on a track that will not offer him the kind of assistance he might ideally like.
All of which goes back to my original point, that increasingly, in Indian cricket, no one seems to be aware of what the other is doing. Or why.
Meanwhile, what of the opposition? Lankan skipper Arjuna Ranatunga came up with a facer for the media when he said, "I have heard Tendulkar being criticised for putting us in when he won the toss; the fact is if I had won it, I too would have inserted the opposition."
Asked about the negative line of attack implemented by Sanath Jayasuriya and Muthiah Muralitharan on day three, he said that he did not think that it was all that negative. "We got two Indian frontline batsmen out to that line," was his justification. The fact that it took Jayasuriya and his partner around 55 overs of essentialy boring cricket to do that, however, appears to have escaped his attention.
One thing is sure -- if the Lankans find themselves, once more, in a position where the Indian batsmen threaten to take the game away from them, we will find Messers Jayasuriya and company going down leg again. Which makes me wonder whether the Indian batsmen have, prior to the second Test, been taking some "sweeping lessons"? I did see Anshuman Gaikwad, on the morning of day four, out there in the middle with the Indian frontline batsmen, pointing to where the ball was landing and demonstrating how that line should be tackled. And later that day, Ganguly and Kuruvilla in particular implemented that gameplan to superb effect. Now to see if the others have learnt their ABCs equally well.
For me, though, the most indicative of Ranatunga's comments over the past 24 hours was the seemingly offhand one that the Lankan lineup could have a couple of changes in it for the second Test. I would think one of those changes is predictable -- Ravindra Pushpakumara for Sajeewa D'Silva. Sajeewa and Vaas are both left arm medium pacers, both bowl the same slanting line across the batsmen, and this leant a certain predictability to the Lankan opening bowling. Pushpakumara, being a right-hander, could provide the variety Sri Lanka needs at the top of the bowling lineup.
But what of the second change? Another bowler coming in for a batsman? Tillekeratne, who looks completely out of sorts, yielding place to Jayanta Silva? This would obviously strengthen the bowling department -- and the Indian batsmen have already demonstrated that as it stands, the Lankan bowling can't really run through the opposing side twice in five days.
But that in turn raises another question -- is the Sri Lankan batting lineup sufficiently strong to risk playing just five batsmen?
It is a conundrum for Ranatunga to solve, it will be interesting to see just how he does that.
Meanwhile, it is live to Nagpur, at 0930 IST tomorrow. And one thing is very obvious -- there will be no insertion, this time, by either captain. The team winning the toss will bat first, if only because I don't think either side will fancy having to bat last on what could be a real turner.
And that in turn raises the question all over again -- India must be the only cricketing nation that makes pitches to suit the opposition, rather than to suit itself.
If India does badly in the second Test, do you suppose the ground staff, and even the pitches committee, will take any part of the flak?
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