Sri Lanka Test series post-mortem

I have come across two distinct types of post-mortem for the Sri Lanka Test series. The first is Dileep Premachandran’s on cricinfo, which is expectedly brilliant, and not something that I can add much upon. The second is the tripe in the Indian media (I have only read The Hindu and Times of India), which has immediately turned it into a “Does the Fab Four have a future anymore?” tirade. So let me try and add my two cents, hopefully more in the Premachandran vein.

Let us face it – we were beaten by a team that, under the conditions, was the superior team. “Under the conditions” is key – Sri Lanka have always been a formidable presence at home, and India is not the first team to experience that. But their performances abroad have been no better than India’s had been through the 1990s. At the end of the day, there isn’t a huge amount separating the teams that are vying for the no. 2 spot – India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and England. But of the four, India and South Africa have consistently shown their ability to perform abroad, while England has now lost successive series at home to South Africa and India. Was Sri Lanka the better team in the series? Absolutely. Are they a better Test team than India? I certainly don’t think so. If one puts things in perspective, then really it is India and South Africa that can legitimately lay claim to the no. 2 Test spot. And of the two, South Africa is yet to trouble the Aussies the way India has consistently done.

Why was Sri Lanka so much the better side this time around? The simple answer really is Ajantha Mendis. After all, a very similar Sri Lankan side that also included Jayasuriya came to India a couple of years ago, and they were hammered. Sri Lanka minus Mendis has also looked a pretty ordinary side for the whole year since the World Cup. One can talk about how Mendis will eventually be figured out till one is blue in the face, but the fact is that he is an exceptional talent, and unless he goes wrong in the head, is bound to become an all-time great. I can only count a handful of times in my cricket-watching career when a single bowler has so dominated a Test series – Harbhajan against Australia in 2001; Shane Warne against England early in his career (was it 93?); Kumble against England in 93; Malcolm Marshall against England in 88; Imran Khan against India in 83. Of these, all except Bhajji are acknowledged as all-time greats of the game.

The thing with Mendis is that he combines two remarkable attributes. He has the ability to keep it straight and keep coming at the batsmen like Kumble; but he spins the ball in as many directions as Warne, and sometimes as prodigiously. That is a deadly combination.

There are two things that make this Sri Lankan attack particularly potent against the sort of batsmen that India has. The first is that the Indians are fine when they can keep the scoreboard ticking at one end. They have always struggled against Murali, for instance, but have in the past adopted a strategy where they would see him out and open up against someone else at the other end. That is, indeed, what they did in Australia as well – saw off Lee, and took on the others. When Stuart Clark hit his straps in Melbourne, India struggled. Once they got a handle on Clark for the rest of the series, they basically prospered. The second is that India doesn’t do well when its batsmen are so completely shackled, and Murali and Mendis are, first and foremost, containing bowlers. (This is in contrast to Warne, who is always looking for wickets and experimenting). The Indians at the end of the day do better against someone like Warne, because if they have the opportunity to keep releasing pressure with scoring shots, they stay on top of the game in their head. But other than Dravid and to some extent Laxman, they do not have the ability to play the kind of attritional innings that Sangakkara played at the P. Sara – which is why, while dominating the likes of Warne, they have succumbed to the likes of Paul Harris. The last time a team did such an effective job of throttling the Indians was when Australia toured in 2004 – Gilchrist basically set defensive fields, Gillespie and Kasprowicz gave nothing away, and India succumbed tamely.

Anyway, all things considered, let us give credit where credit is due – this Lankan side has a few things going for it. The first is that, when fully fit, it probably has the best and most varied bowling attack in the world, with Vaas, Malinga, Murali and Mendis, backed up by the likes of Maharoof and Fernando. The second is that, while not quite the batting side that it was in the mid-90s, it has two players of remarkable caliber in Sangakkara and Jayawardene – invariably, even if one fails, the other pulls through for them. Thirdly, with Fleming retired and Vaughan no longer captain, they clearly have the best captain in world cricket in Jayawardene. And fourthly, they have a depth in their cricket that they have lacked in the past – in spite of all the injuries to fast bowlers, they were able to play someone like Dammika Prasad who troubled the Indians; and quality batsmen like Chamara Silva and Chamara Kapugedera are waiting in the wings for a chance. So all said and done, things are looking bright for Sri Lankan cricket, and I am personally very pleased that this is the case. They add luster to the game.

From the Indian perspective, let us start with the bright sparks at the top. Sehwag and Gambhir were simply magnificent. Viru showed that his genius is of a different order even to that of the superstars in the middle order, because when he is on song, he takes things like conditions and quality of the opposition out of the picture. In my mind, purely on ability, he is one of the three best batsmen in world cricket (Sangakkara and Kevin Pietersen being the other two). But he is also the sort of batsman for whom the margin between success and failure is slim, particularly early in his innings. He invariably plays streaky shots or gives chances early in the piece, and four times out of six, that led to an ordinary performance from him. If the edges don’t go to hand, or he gets a life, however, he makes people pay the way few others do, and once he is in a zone, you know that he knows that he can’t be stopped. That his last 11 centuries have resulted in 150+ scores is simply phenomenal. Even “Bradmanesque” would be an inaccurate term for that – a new one will have to be coined.

In some ways, however, Gambhir’s performance was even more heartening. Here is someone who has had to come through the ranks the hard way, and the way he has become a central figure in this side in all forms of the game over the past year has been most heartening. He is no longer just an attacking batsman, but has become Mr. Dependable – bar that horrendous shot in the second innings at P. Sara, he has developed patience, and no longer tries to dominate the bowlers at all times, which often led to his downfall in the past. What is particularly noteworthy is the way he uses his feet to the spinners – only Brian Lara, to my recollection, has handled Murali with such comfort. Purely on technique, Wasim Jaffer is probably the better opener; but Gambhir is so much stronger mentally. When he has finally been given security in the side, he has prospered. Watching him against the Aussies this October will be most interesting.

All things considered, though, it has to be heartening when a series defeat abroad isn’t combined with the immediate lament about the dearth of top-quality openers in the country.

The rest of the picture is rather more dismal, so let me try and think through what went wrong with the middle order. For me, the biggest fault yet again lies not with the players, but with the BCCI. Here are four players who absolutely form the meat of the batting line-up, yet now none of them are part of the one-day scheme of things any longer. All of them are rhythm and form players – when they are in the zone, they are unstoppable, but they have always, throughout their careers, been rusty while coming off a break. Even in Australia, I had pointed out that the BCCI was most culpable for giving us only one warm-up game before the Tests, which meant that Melbourne was basically a write-off before it started. Yet, here again, that is all we got. At least the Indians had a series against Pakistan just before Australia, so while they weren’t accustomed to conditions, they had lots of match-practice going in. Here, they had virtually no competitive cricket for more than two months. Unlike last year, Ganguly and Dravid weren’t playing one-day cricket, which would have at least given them some rhythm and form, while Sachin was coming off injury. From that, they were expected directly to take on bowlers of the caliber of Murali and Mendis. What else would one expect? It is like asking a sprinter to run the 100m in the Olympics without warming up.

The point is, one can make these points till one is blue in the face, but the BCCI knows it will never be held accountable, unless we, the cricket-loving public, figure out a way to make it so (public interest litigation, anyone?!). Suddenly, four of the greatest players in world cricket find their heads on the chopping block, but does Sharad Pawar? Or Niranjan Shah? Or Lalit Modi? Or anyone else who allows the perpetuation of such insane scheduling?

And the BCCI shows no sign of relenting. Once again, these players have two months off, and then have to take on the Aussies cold. (If Sachin is fit for the Champions Trophy, he will have some cricket before the Aussies arrive, otherwise it will be a similar situation to what it was in Sri Lanka). Laxman wanted to make use of that time to play county cricket – but he has been barred from doing so because his county has people who played in the ICL! In other words, petty monopolist one-upmanship against the ICL is more important to the board than getting someone who will be our key batsman against the Aussies into some kind of form. By the laws of most civilized nations in the world, the BCCI’s action against Laxman would not just be petty but illegal, since it would constitute a restriction against practicing one’s trade. But even if Laxman could argue his case in a court of law, one knows for a fact that the slightest whimper out of him would lead to an immediate and vindictive end to his cricketing career. The megalomaniacs at the BCCI have an idea of governance that has elements of the way ruthless dictators, robber barons or petty feudal lords think. It is disgusting in the extreme.

This general tirade apart, let me think through the performances of each of the middle order batsmen on view. Dravid showed as the series progressed that he is getting some of his old form back. He will never again be the batsman that he was in 2002-04, but he still has a lot of cricket left in him. For him, the problem was never with form, but in the mind. If he can clear the cobwebs in his head, and believe in himself as much as his fans believe in him, he will be fine.

Laxman looked the best of the four batsmen on view, which means that, over the past year, he has without a doubt been the most consistent performer in our middle-order. That he is still batting at 6 therefore beggars belief. As was the case in England last year, this means that Laxman too often is batting with the tail, which is not the mode in which he bats best. Even if for some reason 3 and 4 are being held as sacrosanct for Dravid and Tendulkar, there is no justification for Laxman batting below Ganguly. This consistent failure of strategy – disappointingly continued with by Kumble – is really hurting us. Nonetheless, what was worrying about Laxman was his inability to figure Mendis out. He looked as troubled by Mendis as Darryl Cullinan was by Shane Warne. This is basically a function of the sort of batsman Laxman is – he does play across the line when balls are pitched on the stumps, which is why he has also struggled against good wicket-to-wicket swing bowling in places like England and New Zealand. An incoming delivery that pitches on the stumps plays to his on-side strengths; an outgoing delivery that pitches on off and moves away (which is what a conventional leg-spinner or out-swing bowler would bowl) gives him room to manufacture shots on the off-side, and allows his sublime timing and placement to come into play. An outgoing delivery that consistently pitches on middle and leg, which is what Mendis’s carom ball is, however, is one that poses serious questions of Laxman’s technique, and it was something he wasn’t able to come to terms with.

Tendulkar’s problem is the same as it has been over the past three years that he has been wrestling with injury – his ability is intact, but he takes time to get his rhythm back when returning from injury. Yet, because different selectorial standards are applied to him than to others, he automatically regains his place in the side every time, to his detriment as well as to the team’s. If Sachin is fit for the Champions Trophy and gets some cricket under his belt before Australia arrives, then that is good news. If he doesn’t, then the courageous decision of keeping him out of the side and getting him to play some domestic cricket first has at least to be contemplated. Certainly, he needs at the very least to be made to play an Irani Trophy game before the Test series.

From my perspective, Ganguly was the unluckiest of the lot, because he simply looked out of sorts and out of form. That happens to every cricketer all the time, and indeed his disappointing performance in Sri Lanka was no different from Rohit Sharma’s disappointing performances in the preceding one-day tournaments. But such is our obsession with retiring our superstars that the speculations have already begun about Ganguly’s continuation – in spite of the fact that he made more runs than anyone in Test cricket in 2007; in spite of the fact that as recently as the previous series, he saved our skin against South Africa; in spite of the well-known fact that when the chips are down and the going is tough, then he is as dependable as anyone in defying the odds and coming up trumps. I for one am not yet ready to write him off.

In some ways, more worrying than the middle-order was the performance of our two wicket-keepers, Karthik and Parthiv. At one level, I feel sorry for them both, because they were in no win situations. DK in particular has been kept on the margins all year in spite of being our top scorer in England last summer, and has been treated poorly in the ODI scheme of things by Dhoni, who clearly sees him as a threat. Had either succeeded, they would still have no doubt lost their place to Dhoni upon his return. Had they failed, as they have, even their position on the margins would have been vulnerable, as it is now.

Having said this, their keeping was pretty abject, and the difference between them and Prasanna Jayawardene was one of the starkest differences between the two teams in the series. Frankly, purely as a Test batsman, I think DK has done as much over his career with more limited chances than Dhoni has, and both DK and Parthiv provide the added flexibility of being able to open at a pinch. But what is noticeable is just how much Dhoni has improved behind the stumps – even when he was being troubled by late swing in England last summer, he didn’t drop a catch. Given that before Dhoni, we have lost Test series because of poor keeping – Parthiv’s 14 missed chances against the Aussies in 3 Tests in 2004, or Deep Dasgupta’s horrors before that – the value that Dhoni adds purely as a specialist keeper cannot be under-estimated. In that sense, it is worrying that both his immediate back-ups are such poor shows. DK is a better keeper than we have seen in this series – in the past, there have been occasions when he has looked flawless, and if given the right encouragement I still think he is the best man to back Dhoni up. But one has to wonder if Parthiv is really any better behind the stumps now than he was four years ago, in spite of the obvious improvement in front of the stumps. One also wonders whether it is time to groom other back-ups to Dhoni on the basis of their keeping rather than batting abilities. Ajay Ratra was outstanding, and was dropped because of his batting rather than his keeping; he is still in his mid-20s, and active on the domestic circuit. And Orissa’s Halhadar Das is reputed to be one of the safest glove-men in the domestic circuit, so it might be time to see what he can do in tour matches or A tours.

Another huge gulf between the two teams was in the spin department. I must admit that Harbhajan bowled beautifully at Galle; but otherwise, 6 wickets in the remaining two matches is slender pickings, and I am still not entirely at ease at the thought of him leading the attack. More worrying is Kumble’s decline since the Australia series. To be fair, he has struggled throughout his career against Sri Lanka – that is one team that has always figured him out. But he was ordinary against South Africa as well, and that is a team he has been hugely successful against in the past. As with Ganguly, I am not yet ready to write him off – it could be that Australia will bring out the best in him again. But I do think his days are numbered, which is why our lack of a coherent policy in grooming successors to him, as I noted in my previous post, is so worrying. I don’t think that Ojha or Chawla are ready yet for Test cricket, and Powar’s form has been nothing to write home about, which is why for me it is imperative to bring Murali Kartik and Amit Mishra more actively into the scheme of things sooner rather than later.

In the seam department, Ishant Sharma again impressed before injury, and Zaheer showed moments of brilliance. But the latter, since returning from his injury, has been a shadow of the bowler who tormented England last summer. I still think that as a general rule, we are a better team when we play three seamers rather than just two. Even in the first innings at the SSC, Zak and Ishant had created huge pressure on the Lankan top order, but there was no one to back them up and hammer home the advantage. The Lankans in particular are much better at playing spin than seam; but even other teams have developed the ability to play spin well. For instance, Neil MacKenzie and Hashim Amla handled our spinners beautifully, while the likes of Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds are some of the best players of spin the world. Playing spin is no longer the prerogative of sub-continental batsmen. On the other hand, no one really plays quality swing bowling well, and we have some of the best swing bowlers in world cricket. The English struggled against our swing bowlers last summer in spite of growing up on them, and the Aussies too struggled against them.

The other point to note is that India has looked a match-winning team in series when R.P. Singh has been in the groove. It is true that he disappointed against South Africa; but he was colossal in England and in Australia, and he couples the ability to move the ball both ways with a big heart. I think that if we play two spinners, he should be keeping Zak on his toes; but frankly, would in my gut prefer to play him even on sub-continental conditions to Harbhajan, in spite of the latter’s recent glut of wickets. The bravest thing of all would of course be to play five bowlers and drop either Ganguly or Tendulkar from the playing 11, which would allow us to play three seamers and two spinners – but that sort of courage is unlikely to manifest itself in the Indian team management anytime soon.

All in all, then, Sri Lanka has been a disappointment rather than a disaster. The biggest wake-up call, I think, is in terms of thinking about the future of our spin bowling. The biggest reaction to guard against is the knee-jerk dropping of the seniors from the Test side.

In the meantime, I can’t wait till Ajantha Mendis gets to bowl to the English.