While I am unhappy, as any Indian fan would be, at the outcome of the Melbourne Test, all I can say is: I told you so. Pretty much everything in that game panned out as I had predicted. The only encouraging aspect was that the Indian bowling punched well above its weight in spite of being just a four-man attack, with young Umesh Yadav being particularly impressive. (As someone who had written him off, I happily stand corrected). India’s over-hyped batting line-up showed its weaknesses against the moving ball in conditions abroad. Australia showed tremendous vulnerability in their own batting, but also showed off a young bowling attack that has the potential to match England’s in the years to come. Our bowling showed how much more effective it is overall when Zaheer Khan is leading the attack. And Virat Kohli’s place could have been much better taken by an extra bowler. However well our bowlers bowled, the fact remains that Australia’s weak batting line-up made more runs against our bowlers than our supposedly strong line-up made against theirs. Having Pragyan Ojha’s controlled spin to fall back on as an extra option would have made it harder for the Aussies to make those crucial extra runs at critical moments. On the whole, however, the Melbourne Test proved, first of all, just what a terrible ground Melbourne is for India, as we kept intact our recent record (now going back two decades, so really not that recent) of losing there by more than 100 runs. And secondly, that Australia is, if not unarguably a better side than India, than certainly the more likely side to win this series in their home conditions.
The question is, can we come back in Sydney? Our performances over the past few years suggest that we can, since we have typically started slowly on tours but have shown the mental resilience to fight back from deficits. This is in contrast to Australia, who in recent times have shown great inconsistency, and an inability to string together successively strong performances. Also, while it is more than 30 years since India has won a Test at Sydney, there is no question that it is a happier hunting ground for our batsmen – Tendulkar and Laxman in particular – than Melbourne. So, all the indications are that India is far from out of this series, yet.
I do think we can win in Sydney, but there are a couple of things that give me pause. The first, of course, are the memories of the summer in England. There, we didn’t see a mentally resilient team, but one that slid from bad to worse. Of course, England is a terrific side, India had more injuries on that tour, and we were mentally exhausted and definitely not as well prepared as we are for this tour. England’s batting line-up is far more formidable than Australia’s, and our bowling attack on this tour is much stronger than the one that went to England in the summer. Nonetheless, the summer did expose certain structural deficiencies in the Indian side, and nothing has been done to address them. We have papered over them through a meaningless autumn that has seen one-day wins at home, and a Test series win also at home against a West Indies side that, without Chris Gayle, is just marginally better than Bangladesh. And those deficiencies were exposed ruthlessly by the Aussies at Melbourne. Since those deficiencies haven’t gone away in three days, our only chance of winning is to expose Aussie weaknesses more strongly than they expose ours.
There are two major deficiencies here – one more structural and fundamental, and the second having to do with what I believe is the biggest weak link in the Indian side. Let me address each in turn.
The structural, fundamental deficiency is that we do not play top quality swing bowling well. This is not to say that we are flat-track bullies: after all, very few batsmen in the world play quality swing well, except to a considerable extent the English. This is partly because of a surfeit of limited overs cricket that has developed techniques that tend to be too flashy to deal with swing. But it is also partly because, as Sambit Bal has analyzed in an excellent recent piece in cricinfo, much of the past two decades has seen an accent on McGrath-like, hit-the-deck seam bowling, and only in the past few months has there been a sudden resurgence of swing bowling worldwide. (The exceptions, in the 1990s, were of course the Pakistanis, and no one in the world really had the measure of Wasim and Waqar through that decade). Even two years ago, the only genuinely quick swing bowler who, through a combination of pace and movement in the air could get wickets anywhere in the world, was Dale Steyn. (Anderson wasn’t that quick and needed help off the wicket; Zaheer was effective because he could switch from conventional to reverse swing and thereby make use of dry, dusty conditions as well as seaming ones). Now, most teams seem to have a couple such bowlers. Even bowlers who used to be hit-the-deck enforcers are now pitching it up and getting it to swing. Stuart Broad this summer, and Peter Siddle in recent times, are two examples.
Also, the nature of swing bowling has changed. Earlier – except for the Pakistanis, who would bowl fast and straight and move it about – the idea of swing was that it was a tool to get outside edges. This is why it depended so much on the nature of the wicket and conditions. And if you had good batsmen who could leave the ball, and see off the new ball, then such swing was potentially negotiable. Wicket-to-wicket swing tended to be associated for the most part with the older ball and reverse swing – which was also favored more under certain pitch and weather conditions than others. In other words, the conventional wisdom was that a McGrath-type bowler would be effective in all conditions at all times, while a swing bowler would only be so in some places some of the time. The empirical evidence for this was to be found in McGrath’s own success rate, as compared to the early record of someone like Anderson.
Indian batsmen have learned to play seam. This is why they have succeeded in the past in Australia, and even held their own in South Africa, their problems against Steyn notwithstanding. Because one outstanding swing bowler can be negotiated. It’s a different ball game, however, if one has to negotiate three outstanding swing bowlers, as we had to in England or in Melbourne. Then, even the best technique gets put under stern examination, and most have been found wanting.
This is what makes me anxious about Sydney – the question of whether our batsmen have the technique to survive what will be another searching examination by a trio of bowlers who will pitch it up, bowl straight, and swing it fast and late. The only person in the Indian batting line-up who has the technique to deal with that is Dravid. That Gambhir, Sehwag and Kohli don’t really have the technique to deal with this is obvious, though each of them (Sehwag in particular) may get runs through some combination of grit, audacity, or let-up in intensity on the part of the bowlers. What worries me more is that Laxman and Tendulkar also, in my opinion, don’t have the technique to deal with this. Laxman has a phenomenal record against Australia, but against an Australian attack that was based around seam. Now, he is suddenly confronted with an Australian attack that seems to have developed an English phenotype, and Laxman’s record against England is distinctly ordinary. A technique that is built on wrist-work rather than footwork is not one that is ideally suited to succeed against the type of bowling that was on offer in Melbourne, and that will again be on offer this week.
Sachin’s technique is better suited to this than Laxman’s, but I would go out on a limb and say that, all the hype about Sachin’s averages in Sydney notwithstanding, he too is vulnerable. This is because, at his core, Sachin is an attacking batsman. But if you attack bowling of this quality and intensity and don’t get it to back off, then sooner or later a ball is going to slip through the cracks. This is exactly what happened in Melbourne. Negotiating bowling of this quality requires the ability not just to counter-attack, but to grit it out. To play well even when not fluent or pretty. Only Dravid, in this line-up, has this ability, which is why he was head and shoulders above the rest in England. If we are to win in Sydney, it has to be on his back.
What we have going for us, as mentioned earlier, is the fact that our bowling is stronger than it was this summer, and Australia’s batting is weaker than England’s. So potentially, a Dravid 100 could be the difference between the two sides. The reason our bowlers could not get through the Aussies as quickly as they could get through us brings me to the second weakness in this side. Indeed, the biggest weakness in the side: M.S. Dhoni.
Quite simply, Dhoni’s captaincy has been amongst the worst I have seen in the three decades that I have followed cricket. His principle of spreading the field the minute the 6th wicket falls is utterly inexplicable. Commentators are hoping that he would have learned his lesson in Melbourne – but given that he did this throughout the summer and didn’t learn his lesson then, I don’t see that he would have learned it now. Is he saying that the same fields and tactics that are good enough to dismiss Ponting, Clarke and Hussey are insufficient to dismiss an out-of-form Brad Haddin, or Siddle or Pattinson? It is ludicrous. And then he has the gall to gripe about the bowlers’ inability to get through the tail! As Ian Chappell said, Dhoni’s captaincy on the 4th morning was an object lesson in how to lose a Test match. My only correction would be to replace “object” with “abject”. It was a disgrace. Yet, other than Chappell, not a single commentator has called him out on this, except for some polite talk on cricinfo about how more attacking fields would have been better.
I think it is time for Dhoni’s Test captaincy to come to an end. If, somehow, we eke out a creditable performance in Australia, then Dhoni himself should step down, saying that he has achieved whatever anyone could hope to achieve, that he has had his four years at the helm, that it is time to look forward. If we end up losing big, which is quite possible, he needs to be axed.
A good captain has at least one of three elements (great captains usually have at least two). He could be a good strategist; he could be a good man-manager; or he could lead by example. Dhoni has never been a good strategist. In his very early days, in the 2007 T20 World Cup or when he stood in for Kumble in the 2008 home series against Australia, he would at least take gambles – largely, I think, because he had nothing to lose. Since he has become a full-time captain, however, he has been an extremely conservative captain. This reflects in his refusal to even consider a five-bowler attack, even though batting is supposed to be our strong suit; but also in his field placings. This conservatism works if the batting clicks and we have runs on the board, as pressure then can make defensive tactics seem attacking. But when the batting gets exposed, as it was in England and in Melbourne, the true horrors of such a conservative approach become evident. Forget Ganguly, who was indisputably a better tactician than Dhoni. Even the much-maligned Dravid was. (It was unfortunate that Dravid’s tenure as captain was marred by Greg Chappell’s as coach, and also unfortunate that the only thing he will be remembered for as captain will be the 2007 World Cup, just as Dhoni will only be remembered by the 2011 Cup. But the fact remains that Dravid won us a series in England 1-0, and Dhoni lost us one 0-4. That, to me, is a far more significant statistic than a World Cup).
Dhoni’s strength is in man-management; and when he took over the side, this was an important skill to have, given the mistrust that Chappell’s tenure as coach had engendered. But now, this is basically a happy, mutually supportive dressing-room, and one doesn’t need a captain who can bring calm and keep people happy – we need a captain who can think of ways to win Test matches. (One is also forced to wonder how much of that successful man-management had to do with Gary Kirsten, who was so instrumental in bringing out the best from the likes of Gambhir and Sehwag, rather than Dhoni).
Even poor tacticians however can lead from the front if they lead by example; Ricky Ponting is the classic recent example. There is no question, in this regard, that Dhoni is an exemplary limited-overs captain, because there are few batsmen in the world who are as good in the shorter form as he is. But in Test matches, he is just not good enough. He was always a mediocre keeper; and it is quite clear, given his record in England, South Africa and Australia, that he is a textbook definition, as a batsman, of a flat-track bully. Indeed, he is no more a Test batsman than Yuvraj Singh or Suresh Raina. This is why, in my opinion, he refuses to play 5 bowlers – because he knows that there is no way he is good enough to bat at 6 in a Test line-up. (Indeed, it was quite clear in Melbourne that James Pattinson is a better Test match batsman in these conditions than Dhoni is. This is not a question of form – just in terms of basic technique and ability on wickets that have some juice in them, Dhoni doesn’t cut it). His poor batting has for the most part been covered by the successes of those who have come before him; but when the top and middle-order struggles, having a number 7 who can be depended upon becomes important, and Dhoni is a big cipher in this regard. Forget Ashwin, Ishant Sharma inspires more confidence with the bat than Dhoni does. One could forgive the ordinary keeping and the ordinary batting as long as the myth of Dhoni’s captaincy endured. But if that myth itself requires performance to hold up, then we are in a circular situation.
Quite simply, this emperor has no clothes. The tragedy is that the moral of that story was that the naked emperor was still emperor. And that is the case here. No one is seriously calling Dhoni to account, the myth and the aura and the hype are just too great, he was never taken to task for the failure in England, and he is still getting off largely scot-free here.
And he sells too many packets of soap. He is just too precious a commodity, which means that his power will not be affected by little things like failure of the field in Test matches. But if we lose this series – as we likely will – it will be his fault, as captain and as batsman. And he will remain unaccountable, will make some runs in the tri-series after that, someone else like Gautam Gambhir will be made a scapegoat, and all will be forgotten and forgiven.
I am disgusted with Dhoni, but will still tune into the Sydney Test with trepidation and anticipation. This is our best chance of a win, we cannot afford to go 2-0 down, and this is the chance for our team to stand tall and shine. But a win is going to depend on another strong performance from our bowling unit – definitely likely – and on Dravid standing tall on the burning deck like he did in England. What is different is that England had 9 batsmen who could bat as successfully as Dravid; Australia, in actual fact, has none. So Dravid + the bowlers could yet win this for us, in which case the series will be tantalizingly set up.
But if we do win, it will be in spite of our captain, not because of him.
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