Let us not allow complacency to creep in yet

India might have won their recent home test series against Australia comprehensively with the last of them folding under 3 days. Sure enough, with a historic 4-0 whitewash to celebrate against a team with an aura like Australia, it is reason enough to celebrate.

There are enough reasons to raise a toast to the series - the young top order of Vijay, Dhawan and Pujara displaying rock-solid partnerships; the spin combination working viciously through the Australians’defence; the emergence of Jadeja as a surprise trump-card to add to the bowling guile of Ashwin and the useful contributions of the pace bowling unit & the lower middle order in batting.

But let’s just check our celebrations before we start believing that we are anywhere close to the summit in Test cricket.  Some experts including former captains have rightfully warned the celebrations from going overboard.

The next test series that India play is against the mighty South Africans in their own backyard, who at the moment, are bulldozing their way against all opposition irrespective of the conditions.

The lack of form in the core of India’s middle order in batting (Read – Sachin Tendulkar); the by now accepted norm & inability to knock off the opposition’s tail and finally the slip-catching seem to be the only chinks in the Indian team. Or so we would like to think.

We as a nation and a set of administrators have in the past, often displayed the tendency to get carried away and have refused to take note of the undercurrents.  

Here are the reasons why the Indian team management cannot let Complacency creep in:

Performances in the recent past

Since the last time the 2 teams met, South Africa have played 19 Tests – 10 at home and 9 away winning 12 of them with a Winning percentage of 63%, the same shooting up to 80% at home. India on the other hand have played 24 Test matches in the same period – 13 at home and 11 away with a winning % of just 38%, failing to register even a single overseas win in the interim.

Put together, the recent Proteas’ winning % at home and India’s winning % overseas provide a daunting visual thought to the Indian fan.

South Africa in Tests since Indian tour of SA in 2010-11
	Home Tests	Away Tests	Total
Wins	8	4	12
Losses	10	9	19
Win %	80%	44%	63%

 

South Africa in Tests since Indian tour of SA in 2010-11
	Home Tests	Away Tests	Overall
Wins	9	0	9
Losses	13	11	24
Win %	69%	0%	38%

Batting and Bowling woes in overseas tours

In their 8 test matches played in England and Australia in the last couple of years, India had registered a score of 300 and 400 only once each. The aggregate of both the innings’ totals of a match did not touch 500 runs in 5 of those occasions. 

Experts tend to focus only on the bowling weaknesses and the batting failures are often not remembered beyond the subsequent home series.

While the batting composition has taken a completely different shade in the last few months what with a couple of legends retiring and the opening pair of Sehwag-Gambhir finally being overlooked for their long-running dismal form, the inexperienced line-up will be seriously tested against some hostile bowling in the form of Steyn’s pace, Morkel’s bounce and Philander’s swing.

Not that the criticism directed at the bowling department has been undeserving. India’s bowling averages for the England and Australia series have been at a not so impressive 59.8 and 51.6 runs respectively. Forget a series win, as it happened, even a draw would seem a far-fetched dream with such performances.

If we really want to be counted seriously in test matches abroad, much needs to be looked at and pondered over on both the batting and bowling armoury.

Sachin Tendulkar and the middle order

The question mark on Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement remains – is he or is he not is a sword perpetually hanging over the fans and selectors alike by the looks of it.

Sachin, if selected, could be for the larger reason of playing the role of a mentor than merely that of a batsman, in this batting line-up so low on match experience.

The emotional side almost never wants him to do the sunset walk but his recent form suggests that even his stoic fans would not want the master batsman to linger on this way beyond his hay-days.

We are probably already behind schedule in allowing the younger lot of Ajinkya Rahane and the new avatar of Suresh Raina to get some opportunities to display their mettle (more opportunities in Raina's case), face some chin music  and try to stamp their place in the line-ups for the future.

All-rounders

While he’s just a series old, this responsibility already seems to be comfortably resting on Ravindra Jadeja’s shoulders at the moment. But in overseas conditions, am still tempted to look for a pace-bowling all-rounder.  Jadeja is still largely untested as a batsman at the test level too.

Bhuvaneshwar Kumar has indicated he’s willing to throw in his hat to be considered as one but again, a sum total of 4 innings to show as experience should hardly suffice to settle the butterflies in the management’s tummies.

It’s been 5 years since Irfan Pathan played his last match and he’s just about returned to competitive cricket in the domestic T20 tournament Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy after an injury lay-off. It might be a bit of a stretch to include him in the squad but one does entertain thoughts of him returning to his past glory.

South Africa though, has some riches to flaunt around in this area starting with the evergreen Jacques Kallis who only seems to get better with age. Robin Peterson has proved to be a more than useful lower order bat and A B de Villiers in his role as a wicket-keeper batsman supports his stature in the team with a much higher career batting average than a lot of his counterparts around the world.

Pace Battery

Our pace battery looks extremely weak to take advantage of the seaming and bouncing conditions in South Africa.

Zaheer Khan is said to have started practice at the RCB nets for the upcoming IPL but his injury-prone nature will not leave the selectors depending on him to spearhead the attack.

Ishant Sharma in the last 5 series that he has played averages 58, 67, 90, 42 and 38, a disappointing progress to a career that had much to promise post the Ricky Ponting dismissals in Perth in 2007-08.

Munaf Patel has not been considered for a Test match since the 2011 tour of the West Indies. He is another victim of injuries and had started bowling recently in the domestic tournaments and made some useful contributions in the Deodhar Trophy. His accuracy in line and length could be useful but assessment of his fitness levels will dictate his consideration.

Umesh Yadav has been one of the rare reasons to cheer in the pace bowling area of late for India. While his pace, body structure and the amount of cricket that is being played would demand that he is handled delicately, let’s not expect common sense to prevail. The stakes that float around IPL and sometimes the insensitive manner in which the board has handled the players has meant that we might have to live with an injury prone Umesh for longer.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has just 1 series to show against his name so far but some of his contributions and his ability to swing the ball both ways mean that he would be a sure pick for South Africa.

Ashok Dinda and Praveen Kumar and a couple of top Ranji performers like Ishwar Pandey and Siddharth Kaul are the other players who are likely to be discussed for selection.

Sandeep Patil and his company of selectors have brought in a breath of fresh air, sending out some stern messages to the players so far irrespective of their seniority. Let us hope the wind continues to blow in the right direction ahead of the November tour.

Could the Australians have helped themselves better in India?

Could the Australians have helped themselves better in India?

Steve Waugh called it the final frontier but failed to realize his dreams of conquering it. After Bill Lawry’s victorious 3-1 series win in India, it took 35 years, 6 tours, 4 series losses and 5 captains (technically 6 in 2004-05) to alter the flow of the wind in 2004-05. For Michael Clarke, who had played a key role in the series win in 2004-05, it was baptism by fire in his still early days as captaincy.

Selection issues

Having had the luxury of watching another team tour India and defeat them recently, Australia chose to throw away the advantage of learning from England’s experiences and mistakes. The English management had quickly learned from their blunders in their 1^st test match and included the energetic Monty Panesar from the next test on, the decision starting to yield results in pounds right from the word go.

England demolished India in their own backyard and in rank turners in the next couple of tests, with Monty taking 16 and Graeme Swann taking 11 of the 40 Indian wickets that fell in Mumbai and Kolkata. With that, the fight in the Indian attack was extinguished and England gifted themselves with a well-fought series win in India after close to 3 decades.

On the other hand, while Australia made a strong statement by naming the playing eleven 2 days ahead of the 1^st test in Chennai, they made the fundamental error of not including enough specialist spinners in the team. Picking a squad with 4 spinners albeit relatively untested and playing with just one of them in India create an impression of a confused team management.

Moises Enqriques’ inclusion ahead of Mitchell Johnson was also questionable though he made himself useful with the bat in the series.

The 2^nd match saw it becoming a series of errors. While his performance commanded an additional spinner to be included to support him, Nathan Lyon saw himself being dropped for his less experienced counterparts. And Moises Enriques continued being favoured, ironically for his secondary role in the team, the primary role of bowling having been overlooked.

Batsman not learning from past mistakes 

While the Australian batsmen struggled to come to terms with the turn in the wicket and the vicious spin that the Indian trio of spinners managed in every match, some of the leading batsmen were guilty of a lack of application.

The Australian media has rightly slammed the batsmen for the manner of their dismissals.

Key among them was the top order of Shane Watson, David Warner, Ed Cowan and Phil Hughes. 

Much was expected of Shane Watson who was the leading scorer for Australia on their previous 2-match test series in 2010, scoring 271 runs in 4 innings at an average of 67.75. He had shown tremendous application in that tour especially in the 1^st match at Mohali, facing about 56 overs for his 126 runs in the 1^st innings. From being the highest scorer in the previous tour to being the lowest among all Australians, scoring less than even some some tailenders told the story of Watson’s contributions in the series.     

David Warner was guilty of throwing away his wicket every time in the name of aggression, Phil Hughes’ footwork against spinners seriously raised question marks about his preparedness for the tour and Ed Cowan’s refusal to learn from the manner of earlier dismissals deserved to be rebuked. That all these batsmen showed fleeting signs of form in the tour did not offer any respite to the Australian dressing room as none of them put their hands up to be counted as men when the team really needed them.

Shooting yourself in the foot

Languishing at 0-2 at the end of the 2^nd test in Hyderabad, the last news that was expected from a team on foreign shores is of a major disruption in the team’s spirits.

Much has been said about the ‘homework-gate’ of the Aussies. What was meant to be a penalty on the players seemed to be breaking their own walls in the face of a dominating opposition. Atleast 3 out of the 4 suspended players could have been the 1^st choice in the playing eleven for the match at Mohali.

Whatever was the tearing hurry to prove this one-upmanship in the middle of a tough and losing series could only be best explained by Mickey Arthur and Michael Clarke, both of whom put out their best defences to justify the decision.

While the Ashes is sometime away, it would do well for Australia to look into their team selection right down to the playing eleven and go with horses for courses. The physios would be working around the clock to get Michael Clarke and Ben Hilfenhaus back in action.

In the meantime, one only hopes to see the homework being applied on the field rather than being fielded as a joke.