What a win!

It is just a few hours before the commencement of the Mohali Test, and I am still recovering from the excitement of Chennai. It was just one of those perfect Test matches, a true celebration of cricket at its best. In the past, such perfect Test matches have usually ended up with India narrowly losing – think Bangalore 1987, or Chennai a decade ago, both against Pakistan.

There isn’t too much to say about India’s performance except gasp in admiration. As Satish pointed out in a recent comment, we are now starting to play like Australia. I know there are still skeptics amongst the populace – people who think we are not good enough, or consistent enough, to be considered a great team.

This may be true in part – we are not yet a great team like the Aussies have been this past decade. But that kind of greatness gets established over years, not months, and comes very rarely in any sport. The quality that Australia has shown has only really been witnessed twice before in the more than a century-year old history of cricket – first, by Bradman’s Australians, and then by Clive Lloyd’s West Indians. It is good to aspire to that kind of greatness, but no indictment if we fail to achieve it. Certainly, this Indian team is beginning to look as good as some of the very good teams of the past three decades – Australia under the Chappells in the 1970s; Pakistan under Imran Khan in the 1980s.

There is one thing that encourages me most about the way this team is playing now. And that is the way we fought back from the brink of defeat in Chennai. When people think of the Aussies at their peak, the tendency is to think of an all-conquering unit. But in fact, the Aussies have stuttered often this past decade, especially with their top-order batting. Their strength has been their ability to bounce back consistently from perilous situations, either due to terrific lower-order batting (Steve Waugh; Gilchrist; Symonds) or the ability of their bowlers to take a slew of wickets quickly (Shane Warne most often, but even Mitch Johnson against South Africa yesterday). India has consistently failed on that count, but this Indian side seems made of sterner stuff. The run chase in Chennai was remarkable; but this stomach for a fight was seen as early as Lord’s last year, when Dhoni hung on for a draw that eventually helped us win the series. And it was seen again in Bangalore against Australia, when the lower-order batting of Bhajji and Zak not only pulled off an unlikely draw, but set the stage for our subsequent dominance in the series.

There are those who will trot out the fact that beating Australia was not such a big deal, because they aren’t the team that they were. They may not be the team that they were, but they are still a terrific team – just ask South Africa, who has within two days surrendered positions of strength twice to already be under the cosh against the same Aussie team that has a 0-3 record against us over the past 6 Tests. And there are those who will go on about our “poor” record overseas – this is, at this point, just an empirical falsity, since India’s record overseas over the past decade is second only to Australia’s. Certainly, we were undone by Ajantha Mendis’s genius in Sri Lanka this summer; but I am fairly confident that we won’t be the last team to be similarly undone. This is a very good team playing some inspired cricket; and the Chennai win is really something to rejoice in.

Of course, much is being made of Viru and Sachin, and rightly so. But for me, there were three other little moments in the game that were absolutely central in shaping the outcome. The first was the brace of boundaries that Yuvraj played against Graeme Swann as soon as he came in. At 224 for 4, Yuvi walked in to a high pressure situation. Another wicket, and England would have been well on top. Yuvi was playing quite possibly for his Test match future. Even in one-dayers, he is a shaky starter. Even when set, he is shaky against off-spin. Swann was bowling beautifully, getting drift, turn and unpredictable bounce. Yet, in the second or third over he played Swann, Yuvi played what to me was the shot of the match – going on the back foot and playing with a horizontal bat, as if playing the square cut; but placing the ball perfectly between extra cover and mid-off. There was little flourish to the shot, it was almost like a back-foot defensive block; but the timing was so good that it raced to the fence. He followed that up with a trademark Yuvraj slog-sweep over square leg for another boundary.

Those two shots were amazing, but the crucial moment came in the following over, when Pietersen immediately removed Swann and replaced him with Monty. And at that point, in my mind, the tide of the game had turned irrevocably. At the best of times, Yuvi prefers playing left-arm spin to off-spin. In this game, Swann was bowling far better than Monty. But most of all, it sent a strong signal – that at the first sign of aggression, even from someone as vulnerable as Yuvraj going into this innings, KP was going to do what the batsmen wanted him to do. It was an indication of the defensive mindset that ultimately cost England the game. Much criticism has been directed at Monty for his defensive bowling; but in fact, KP’s captaincy was no less defensive. It wasn’t just the bizarre placement of a deep point after lunch on Day 5, a position that had no earthly use whatsoever; it was also the removal of Swann. Had Swann been persisted with, there is no question that Yuvi would have tried targeting him some more, and perhaps another quick 20 or 30 would have been conceded. But I’m willing to bet that, the way Swann was bowling, he would quite likely have picked up Yuvi’s wicket as well. It was all very well for Flintoff to jibber and jabber at Yuvraj and try and psyche him out with chatter. But when it came to actions, England had already conceded that they were afraid of Yuvi, and at that point, the mind games had definitively been won by India.

The second and third key moments came on the 4th afternoon. Much has been made of India’s batting heroics, but the fast bowlers again delivered when it mattered most, and that post-lunch session, when England added just 57 runs in spite of being in a position of such strength, really cost them. The first thing that made that possible was Flintoff’s early dismissal. Strauss and Collingwood had provided the perfect platform. But that platform needed to be taken advantage of, and what England really needed on Strauss’s dismissal was a quick 30 or 40 to take the game out of India’s reach and set up a strong declaration. Matt Prior has looked good with the bat, but it was really Flintoff who has the ability to play that kind of game-defining innings. Yet in the space of four deliveries, Ishant Sharma had Flintoff on his way. That little spell won’t be remembered as much as Ishant’s tormenting of Ricky Ponting through the year; but that is only because Ponting survived long enough to be tormented. In fact, that over to Flintoff was about as perfect an over as Ishant has bowled all year – a couple of perfect short balls to set things up, then the perfectly pitched good length outswinger in the corridor of uncertainty that Flintoff just had to play at. Over and over again this year, Ishant has produced the perfect little spell at just the right stage of the game to get the key wickets, and this was another instance of that. A look at statistics and figures will tell us that Harbhajan Singh is India’s highest wicket-taker for the year. But while Bhajji has wheedled meaninglessly for many overs, it is Ishant who has taken wickets that matter when they matter. He has truly done for us what great strike bowlers do for their teams. Even half an hour of Flintoff at the crease, and we could have been looking at a very different ball game.

The third key moment was Zaheer Khan’s bowling to the tail. Wickets of Swann and Harmison don’t count as much as those of a Flintoff; but given how often tails have thwarted India in the past, it is good to see the way Zak bowls at the death. Most notable, of course, is the stunning reverse swing, which was in evidence against Australia as well, and which is every bit as prodigious, and accurate, as Wasim Akram’s was in his prime. It was well remarked that the Indians got reverse swing while Australia didn’t. What is more surprising to me is the amount of reverse swing India is getting compared to England. The Brits are apparently amongst the masters of contemporary reverse swing, and indeed the likes of Flintoff used reverse swing to devastating effect to win the Ashes in 2005. Yet there wasn’t a whimper of reverse swing from any of the England bowlers, not even Flintoff, throughout the Chennai Test.

At the end of the day, as ambassadors and sportsmen, England can hold their heads high. England is normally a team I love to hate; but they played with character, and even, for brief moments, with flair. They certainly gave us a much tougher ride than Australia did. But at the end of the day, they seemed as afraid of winning as India used to do in the 1990s, and consistently failed to press on from positions of strength. And ironically it was KP, who talks a tough talk, who was often hesitant to really turn the heat on as captain when he could have. This means that for a team that has a lot of talent and depth, England’s last significant performance still remains the 2005 Ashes – there is remarkably little to show since then.

India, on the other hand, seems in a zone. They may yet lose in Mohali - in the past, highs like this have been followed by arrogance and complacency – but there is clearly enormous self-belief, and enormous belief amongst team members in each other. What is really exciting for me about the Chennai win, though, is that it has combined two very different styles of winning that India has employed in the past. The one, most common through the early 2000s, was the Miracle Win, where the unbelievable heroics of one or two men would create victories that would be etched in the memory forever. Kolkata 2001 is the classic example here, but there were other less remarkable ones scripted through the 90s on the backs of a Tendulkar or Azharuddin or Kumble special, or in the 1980s because of Kapil Dev’s single-handed heroics. The problem with such victories was that they were rarely replicable – they made India one of the most dangerous teams in the game on their day, a team to always fear; but 9 times out of 10, one would be left hoping for a miraculous performance and instead be given a mediocre one.

Over the past couple of years, however, the Miracle Wins have been replaced by the Team Effort. The three wins against Australia this year were all comprehensive, but none of them was marked by a single stand-out performance. In some ways, that bodes better for the long-term future of the team; but it is not the stuff of dreams that the Indian cricket fan thrives on. Indeed, the aftermath of the recent win against Australia was almost a certain anti-climax – as in great show, chaps, but what do we tell the grandchildren? Chennai, however, had it all. Viru, Sachin and Yuvraj played out of their skins, and the first two at least played knocks the likes of which they might never be able to repeat; but at the same time, every single person other than Dravid made some significant contribution that went towards this win. It is that combination of individual brilliance and solid teamwork that makes this win so special for me.

Worries after Day 3

Well, cricket really is a glorious game, isn’t it? After dominating Australia over 6 Tests, and England over 5 ODIs, it seemed obvious that India is the second best, and possibly the best, team in world cricket today. It took only two sessions of sustained bowling from England to remind us that this is not necessarily the case. It has been a bizarre year for India – the dominance over Australia has been thorough, but we struggled against South Africa, and were outclassed by Sri Lanka. So against the other three teams – South Africa, England and Sri Lanka – that we are vying for the no. 2 spot with, it is not clear that we are clearly better.

Part of this, I think, comes from the fact that Australia does bring out the best in us. While other teams get overwhelmed while playing the Aussies, we have now reached a stage where we really seem to believe that our best performances are likely to come against them. But part of it also comes from the fact that, in comparison to South Africa, Sri Lanka or England, Australia’s bowling attack is mediocre. South Africa has the most menacing seam attack in world cricket today, with three fast bowlers of different styles who can all bowl in the high 140s. Sri Lanka has the dual genius of Mendis and Murali, and once Lasith Malinga becomes fully fit, they will have a genuine fast bowler to open up the top order for the spin duo. And England has serious depth and variety in their bowling. Harmison and Anderson are temperamental, but the formers’ ability to hit the deck and bounce it complements the latter’s ability to swing the ball at pace. Flintoff remains a phenomenon – his ability to keep it tight, build pressure, yet consistently bowl wicket-taking balls is virtually unparalleled, and had it not been for injuries, he would clearly be the best fast bowler in world cricket today. The fact that Monty, who’s a pretty useful bowler, looked the most pedestrian of England’s bowlers on view is an indication of just how well their seamers bowled. When you think of those who are in the wings – the tireless left-arm swing of Ryan Sidebottom; the enormous talent of Stuart Broad; and possibly, just possibly, the brutally quick reverse-swing of Simon Jones – then you see a breadth and depth of fast bowling that Australia just doesn’t possess. India struggles against bowlers who bowl straight and make them play. Australia’s most successful bowler in the recent series, Mitchell Johnson, bowled nearly 3/4th of his deliveries wide of off-stump. The Aussies have one class act in Brett Lee. When he went off the boil, as he did in India, there was really no one else who could build pressure. Our challenge against England in the days to come is going to be much more acute. I still think England’s batting is far weaker than Australia’s; but our batsmen are not going to have easy pickings in this series.

Coming to this game specifically – it really does look a lost cause. India’s 4th innings performances have gotten better in recent times. But England will remember Mumbai in 2006, and they certainly have the bowlers to exploit a 5th day pitch with unpredictable bounce. India is actually is one of those terrible situations with little room to maneuver. Another 100 runs from England and a win will be impossible. But ironically, if England collapse on the 4th morning and leave India with a more gettable target in the vicinity of 300, I think that’s going to be in some ways even more difficult. It will take a draw out of the equation; but it will also start casting questions about the nature of the pitch in the minds of the Indian batsmen. India’s best hope almost lies in playing a containing game, and having England bat till tea or a little after on the 4th day. If England is made to score at less than 3 an over, then they are always going to be wary of making a declaration; if they are not dismissed, then they will probably bat on till the target is at least 400 before they do so. If India has 4 sessions or a little less to bat, then they would fancy their chances of escaping with a draw, as they managed both at Lord’s and against Australia at Bangalore in the last 18 months. Strauss and Collingwood have shown that with a little application, there are no real devils in this wicket. India actually stands a better chance of getting out of this one if England’s batsmen manage to further confirm that impression on Day 4.

For India, there are two huge worries, and no surprises for guessing what they are. The first is Dravid, and the second is Yuvraj Singh. Dravid was the one weak spot in the Indian side in the Australia series. Even when India got a good start, the first wicket would invariably be followed by a quick second. Even when Dravid himself looked good, he found uncharacteristic ways of getting out. By the time Nagpur rolled around, Dravid was so out of it that even his normally customary hands were failing him at slip; and his batting skills seemed long forgotten on his favorite Test venue. The first innings here was no different, and the fact that Dravid didn’t have the cushion of a big partnership behind him only added to the pressure he felt.

The larger question of whether Dravid should be persisted with or dropped won’t go away unless Dravid himself answers it, either with a big innings (hopefully) or with retirement. I had personally suggested before the team was selected that the team, and Dravid, would have been better off had he been left out for this series, especially given Murali Vijay’s impressive debut at Nagpur. But in either case, the stubborn persistence with Dravid at 3 has to end. Laxman, in any case, is wonderfully suited to that position; his form is streets ahead of Dravid’s; and in the second innings situation that we find ourselves in, it is really important that our four best batsmen of the moment occupy the top 4 slots. Allowing Dravid to bat at 5 or 6 is, for the next innings or three, a nice halfway-house between deciding whether to keep him or axe him. It will hopefully take some pressure off him also; let’s remember that his monumental 180 alongside Laxman in Calcutta 2001 was made batting at 6.

Yuvraj’s case is just as tricky. All the debates about whether he is good enough to play at Test level remain after his 1st innings. Like Dravid, his problem too is partly in the mind. It seemed like there was no plan in his own head about how he would tackle this innings. His natural instinct is to attack. The problem is, unlike Sehwag, Yuvraj’s attacking technique is full of holes. Even when he is going berserk, Viru is a technically perfect batsman. He may play risky shots and take on too much, and sometimes he looks stupid doing so. But he rarely plays across the line, and except for a tendency to slash at wide deliveries outside off-stump, doesn’t have too many technical weaknesses. Yuvi’s flamboyance, however, is full of technical deficiencies. He has a big back-lift, which makes him vulnerable to the quick moving delivery; his footwork is poor, which leaves him vulnerable to the out-swinger; and his struggles against quality spin are well documented. Field restrictions and his own arrogance allow him to overcome these deficiencies in one-day games; but there is clearly still a lack of confidence and self-belief when he bats in Tests.

The way he allowed Flintoff to psyche him out is a classic example of that. All Flintoff did was to combine restrictive bowling with a bit of chatter. Viru has his own pulverize-or-perish method of dealing with restrictive bowling. But all other good Test batsmen, if they are confronted with a good bowler who is giving nothing away, are capable of reining themselves in, seeing him off, and turning their sights elsewhere. The Indians have become particularly good at this, and even naturally attacking batsmen like Gambhir, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dhoni have become really good at adapting the pace of their innings to the needs of the situation and the quality of the bowling. Yuvi, however, got rattled after just two overs of Flintoff probing outside his off-stump. That suggests an inability to tailor his batting to the ebb and flow of Test match cricket. Even his recent Test successes – the 169 against Pakistan, or the nearly run a ball 77 against Sri Lanka in Ahmedabad – were about him being in complete control of the situation. But in Test cricket, there are bound to be phases where the bowler takes control, and good Test batsmen are those who know how to ride out those situations. Gambhir, more than anyone else, has learnt this admirably over the past year. If Yuvi is to really take Ganguly’s place, he’s going to need to learn this sooner rather than later.

I think that Yuvi’s selection was probably more justified than Dravid’s. He was colossal in the one-dayers, and he is a form player, so there would have been hope that he would carry that confidence forward into the Tests. And that might still happen. But there is another way to look at this, and that is that a batsman who has over the last 8 years of his career failed to convince in the longer version of the game has been drafted in, for the fourth or fifth time, on the back of a couple of big one-day knocks on a hope and prayer that those will translate into success in Tests. On the other hand, Subramaniam Badrinath, the man who was in the wings already, has been kept waiting for longer, in spite of proven ability to play the long form of the game. So Badri’s performances in Ranji Trophy have been disregarded, and he hasn’t been given the chances that Yuvi has to prove himself through the one-day game. Yuvi, in the 1st innings, walked into a situation that was remarkably similar to that which Andrew Symonds found himself in during the Melbourne Test in late 2006. Symonds was an unquestioned star in one-day internationals, his abilities as a Test batsman were in doubt, and his temperament, like Yuvi’s, swayed between the arrogant and the self-destructive. The Aussies had lost four early wickets with less than 100 on the board. And he took England apart to play a career-defining innings, making him not just a fixture in the Australian side, but, overnight, one of the most feared batsmen in Test cricket. That Yuvi failed to take that chance means that, at the moment, the parallels to Ajay Jadeja cry out more strongly than those to Symonds.

But there is a larger team story to this, because Yuvi’s failure shows just how important Sourav Ganguly has been to us these last two years. In some ways, I think Ganguly is going to be missed more than Kumble. Kumble, for months, has looked jaded and past his best – the question around him really was when he was going to retire. And in Amit Mishra, India has found a more than adequate replacement, certainly for home Tests. But Ganguly has played some of his best cricket over the past two years, and his only failure during this time has been in Sri Lanka. It just puts in perspective how ridiculous the questions were that were raised about him, especially by Dilip Vengsarkar’s selection committee.

The difference between Yuvraj and Ganguly is not simply one of achievement. As I said, Yuvi might yet come good, perhaps even in the next couple of days. The difference was of temperament. Both Yuvraj and Ganguly are confidence cricketers who back themselves, and who have in the process managed to achieve much more in their careers than their techniques alone would have allowed them. But Yuvraj’s confidence is built on fragile foundations – he is good at taking control of situations, and backs himself when he is on a high. Ganguly, on the other hand, was best in crises – either when the team needed him most, or on the many occasions when critics had written him off. And since his comeback to the side in South Africa in 2006, that crisis-induced confidence had almost a zen-like quality to it. Dravid’s own slump in form started in that same series in South Africa. What actually happened, without our noticing it, was that Ganguly, over the past two years, has taken on Dravid’s role in the team. His technique is not that which can earn him a sobriquet like The Wall, but Sourav has, most certainly, been a rock. Even his 50s and 60s have come at crucial times, and there have of course been the great knocks – the double hundred against Pakistan, the series-leveling 80-odd against South Africa in Kanpur, the 100 against Australia in his farewell series. The Indian top order has played with confidence knowing that even if they fail, Sourav will still be walking in at 5 or 6; and this has more than compensated for Dravid’s loss of form and consistency. And like Dravid at his best, Sourav has been able to shift gears almost at will – playing with dour obduracy when the situation has demanded, and lighting into the opposition when that is what the team has needed. Quite simply, the last two years have been Ganguly’s best and Dravid’s worst – and yet it is Ganguly whose future in the game was questioned virtually every step of the way. A middle-order, in this series, of Laxman, Tendulkar and Ganguly at 3, 4 and 5 would have looked ever so good – and in that situation, it wouldn’t have mattered whether the 6th batsman was Yuvraj or Badri or Vijay or Rohit, any one of them would have had the cushion of five top batsmen and Dhoni surrounding them. I think there is no question that Vengsarkar hastened Ganguly’s exit from international cricket by at least a year, and that is the biggest blot on a selectorial tenure that was marked with hubris.

Anyway – with two days left to play, someone needs to play out of their skins to save this one for us. The signs are not good: Dravid is in miserable form; Yuvraj is still searching for the Test batsman within him; Sachin’s second innings record is poor; Viru and Laxman have career averages against England that are significantly lower than their overall averages; and Dhoni has a dodgy ankle. This means that to my mind, the key to India’s fortunes really lies with Gautam Gambhir. He needs to show the other batsmen that this wicket can be negotiated; he needs to set his stall out here for the big one. He has been one of India’s stars this year; and had it not been for his moment of stupidity in elbowing Shane Watson, he would undoubtedly have won man of the series against the Aussies. This is his chance to make up for that stupid moment, and lead the way out of Chennai unscathed to Mohali.

Meanwhile, Dhoni has a man-management decision to make. He has to do one of the following things. Either he has to tell Dravid and Yuvraj that reputations don’t matter here – it is sink or swim time, and either they perform in the second innings or lose their places to Vijay and Badri in Mohali. Or he needs to back them to the hilt, assure them that their place in the side is secure no matter what, and figure out a way to inspire them to play their natural game. In either case, Laxman needs to bat at 3. In the latter case, I would further send Yuvi in ahead of Dravid at 5, with license to play his shots and take the attack back to England. One way or another, Dravid and Yuvi need to be certain in their minds about what they plan to do in the second innings. Their only hope – and probably the team’s – lies in being uncluttered in the head, and Dhoni has to decide whether carrot or stick is more likely to induce that clearness of purpose.