An Analysis Of India's Current Predicaments: Playing For Off Stump

If you are the type of cricket observer that is interested in finding out whose "fault" or "responsibility" it is that India are struggling, then this post is not for you. But if you are wondering why it is happening, then what follows might be of interest. I don't promise a definitive answer, but I will offer a way to think through it.

The figures are there for everyone to see. In the last 13 months, India have toured South Africa, West Indies, England and now Australia. I know a lot of people are saying that India won't play another overseas tour until December 2013, but even the most unsympathetic observer will have to admit that this has been a relentless set of tours, especially given the fact that they have come in the same period as a small tournament called the World Cup, which was played in India. The batting has not reached 500, has crossed 400 only once, and 300 thrice in these 11 Test matches (not counting Sydney). Three Tests have ended in a draw, two of them, because of rain. India have won 2 Tests and lost 6 in this period. Ten years ago, this would have been considered a very good record. in 2011, it is a cause for concern.

Nearly every single Test Match has been played on a result pitch. A result pitch is one which offers the bowlers something all the time, either off the wicket or in the air. More on this later. This string of 11 consecutive result pitches is unusual.

The table below shows the records of India's specialist batsmen (and Dhoni, who is a special case) during this time. The absence of a settled number 6 batsman is a telling problem, especially on result wickets. India have approached this problem in a number of ways in the 2000s. For most of the 2000s, they have had at least one batsman between 3-6 who has struggled. When Sourav Ganguly had his short period of late success under Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble's captaincy, other batsmen were not in form. For the remainder of his time in the Test team in 2000s, he was not scoring runs. But India tended to sandwich Ganguly in at number 5, between Tendulkar and Laxman. Number 6 is a crucial position on result wickets, because this is where it is most likely that run scoring will be reasonably easy.

I have invariably focused on India's fast bowling as the main reason for their problems, and I still think this is true. The table below shows India's bowling in that same period. Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar have been India's two most impressive bowlers, but neither has been available to play more than 6 Tests. Ishant Sharma got a lot of wickets in West Indies, but didn't bowl particularly well there in my view. There is evidence to suggest that I'm right. He struggled against batsmen with better techniques in England (11 wickets at 58), at Melbourne and in South Africa (7 wickets at 48). But there has never been any suggestion of dropping him, and rightly so. Be that as it may, this merely underscores the weakness in India's fast bowling.

This type of structural weakness is hard to overcome. But there are other structural weaknesses as well. Both these structural weaknesses are specific to overseas result wickets. At this point, it is worth elaborating what this means.

I'll define a result wicket as one on which there is some help for at least half the specialist bowling attack, most of the time, if not all of the time. This definition depends on the skill of the bowling attack, and the quality of batting. Three things - the quality of batting, the skill of the bowling and the resultness of the pitch are dependent on each other. So, by such a definition, a wicket can be a result pitch for one side, but not for the other. A stark example of this would be the Manchester Test of 1974. Sunil Gavaskar wrote that it was so green that you could barely make out the wicket from the rest of the square. India cobbled together a bowling attack comprising of Abid Ali, Eknath Solkar and Madan Lal, supported by Bedi and Chandrasekhar. England, in contrast, fielded a much more appropriate attack - Chris Old, Mike Hendrick, Bob Willis and Tony Greig, supported by Derek Underwood. They won by 113 runs, after declaring 295 ahead in the 3rd innings. Sunil Gavaskar made 101 and 58, while GR Viswanath made 40 and 50. Abid Ali make 71 in 93 balls down the order in India's first innings. No other Indian batsman crossed 19. The Old Trafford wicket was, I would argue, a result wicket for the English attack, but not one for India's attack. Another clear example of a result pitch would be the Sydney Test of 1985. West Indies had dominated the series until then, with 3 wins at Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia had held on for a draw by the skin of their teeth at Melbourne in the Boxing Day Test. Sydney, by all accounts was going to be a spinners pitch. Australia replaced the off spinning all rounder Greg Mathews with the leg spinner Bob Holland. The wicket was dry and bare, and Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Courtney Walsh, who had until this point in the series run riot, had to bowl 137 overs to take 7 wickets between them in Australia's first innings. Bob Holland then took 10 wickets in the match and Australia won by an innings. Sydney, I would argue was a result pitch for a side that had a decent specialist spinner.

These are stark examples. When both sides have specialist fast bowlers, it is still possible to discern the result pitch. Lengths and lines come into play. Tests between England and West Indies in the 1990s are an example, when, despite Brian Lara, both sides were similarly capable with the bat, and English bowlers like Gus Fraser, Darren Gough, Dominic Cork and Andy Caddick, who relied on bowling fuller lengths, were pitted against Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop, three interesting bowlers who could bowl in different ways, but preferred to bowl back of a length.

The comparison between the English and West Indian bowlers is an especially interesting one. Neither side had a great spinner. There were two distinct modes of attack - England's seam and swing bowlers relied on attacking off stump by pitching the ball up. Ambrose, Bishop and Walsh, relied on not allowing batsmen to drive or cut or pull, and setting fields to minimise runs conceded through deflections. Both lines of attack depended on supreme control, which most of these bowlers, at their best, had in ample measure. Ambrose could bowl entire sessions without being square cut or pulled. He conceded 2.2 runs per over. Darren Gough, at the other end of the spectrum, an attacking bowler who relied on getting the batsman to drive, conceded 3.21. Gus Fraser was like McGrath, but bowled a slightly fuller length.

To enforce a result, bowlers have to have control. Different wickets rewards different styles of bowling differently. But control allows a bowler to avoid getting hit, even when there is no reward. Ambrose is again the prime example. In 15 Tests in England in 1990s, Ambrose took only 66 wickets. In 14 Tests in West Indies, where the wickets tended to be harder and quicker, he took 76 wickets against England. But his bowling averages were still not excessively dissimilar - 20.95 in England (56 deliveries per wicket), 16.5 (44 deliveries per wicket) in West Indies. This is very different from averaging 20 in one place and 30 in the other.

To counter controlled bowling, a batsman needs to be technically sound. The virtue of having control is that a bowler can make the necessary minute adjustments that make the difference between being steady and being a constant threat on different surfaces. The great bowlers can make these adjustments very quickly.

This year, India have struggled against a specific type of bowler, except in one innings at Centurion, when Morne Morkel got 5 wickets on a wet first day pitch. Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, Ravi Rampaul, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus and the great Dale Steyn, all have one thing in common. They are all bowlers who attack off stump consistently. They rely on making the batsman drive and  testing both edges of the bat. It is not a surprise then, that on pitches that have generally suited this type of bowling, all Indian batsmen except Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, have struggled.

VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni and Virender Sehwag have fairly distinct techniques. VVS and Sehwag tend to play from the crease and rarely cover the line of the ball when playing forward. They also tend to play far away from the front pad. MS Dhoni has a tendency to push out far in front of the pad as well. What has helped them survive for many years, is their exceptional eye and their ability to cope with pace and bounce. Their technique of playing beside the ball for the most part, and keeping the front pad out of the way is also, I would argue, a result of playing on wickets with low bounce, where getting hit on the pad is a far greater risk than getting caught at slip. Typically, even overseas, every other Test in recent years have been played on wickets that offer little by way of lateral movement. In these Tests, VVS especially, has been exceptional.

Contrary to the standard macho, white meme about Indian batsmen and their difficulties with extra bounce, most Indian batsmen adjust to bounce quite well (it may take them an innings or so). They invariably have technical difficulties with the moving ball.

In my view, the rise of batsmen who tend to play loosely outside off stump, often without covering the line of the ball, away from the pad and the body (other teams haven't fared particularly well either in these conditions, especially when they have faced bowling other than India's or Sri Lanka's) is also because, for most of the 2000s, the most desired fast bowler was the one who could bowl like Glenn McGrath or Curtly Ambrose, and not like Dale Steyn. The archetypal fast bowler was tall, could hit a back of a length really hard, and do so for long spells.

The one Indian batsman who I expected would cope with these conditions was Gautam Gambhir. Unfortunately, injuries, the World Cup and IPL interludes and a flurry of interesting wickets have combined to reduce him to shadow of his former self. The Gambhir who was leaving balls in exemplary fashion against Morne Morkel in South Africa, and who was playing so assuredly and so carefully outside off stump against Dale Steyn and Wayne Parnell, has, in his Test appearances after the World Cup, played with the certainty of a cat on a hot tin roof. He has developed an unhealthy obsession with the dabbed single into the off side or the leg side, instead of playing with the full face of the bat. In South Africa, every time he played a ball, he would immediately replay the shot, with a straighter bat - reminding himself of the ideal. He seems to have left this behind.

India might have done better with the bat had at least one of their openers done been in sure touch. With both Sehwag and Gambhir proving to be unreliable, the middle order has been exposed, and despite Dravid and Tendulkar's good form, India's only chance of producing the big score has been for Dravid and Tendulkar to make hundreds in the same innings. This has not happened all year.

If Test Cricket comes to be dominated by fast bowlers who pitch the ball up and attack off stump at pace, and if the general trend of wickets is going to be as it has been this year, then India will have to find batsmen who can defend their off stump as well as Dravid or Tendulkar. Obviously, both Dravid and Tendulkar have also gotten out in the slips or bowled or LBW, but the range of deliveries that can produce these types of dismissals against these two batsmen is much narrower than it is for Sehwag or VVS or, increasingly, Gambhir.

This brings me back to India's bowlers. Both Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, just like Sreesanth before them, are erratic. This has consequences. It reduces the number of balls they bowl in the right areas. It also therefore reduces the chance of them bowling a ball that will induce a wicket. Whats more, because they don't bowl in the right areas, Dhoni has to defend runs more than Michael Clarke or Andrew Strauss or Graeme Smith. This means having fewer catching men.

As Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar have shown in different ways, pace is not everything, control is. Zaheer's control extends to being able to bowl a yard or so quicker than normal when the occasion demands it. Such is his brilliance, that despite being slower than Ishant Sharma or Umesh Yadav as a rule, he still manages to hurry the batsman with his short ball in a way that Ishant or Umesh don't. His bouncer is harder to pick and bowled much more carefully and selectively than Ishant's or Umesh's.

This then, is the web of relations - between the quality of bowling, the technical limitations of the batting, and quality of pitches, that is, in my view behind India's troubles in overseas Tests in 2011.

The wicket in the on going Sydney Test has proved to be a typical new ball wicket. If the sun stays out, and I understand that the forecast says that it will, batting will become considerably easier as the Test Match progresses, at least for a while. If India can find a way to survive the first new ball in their second innings, they should do well. But for that, someone will have to conjure up a magical spell to run through Australia on Day 2.

That man is Zaheer Khan. In his current avatar, he is India's most complete fast bowler of all time, possibly along with Kapil Dev, even though I think Zaheer is more skillful than Kapil. Since his comeback to the Test team in December 2006, he has 162 wickets at 27.37, with a wicket every 51 balls. In Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and England, he had 71 wickets in 15 Tests (including Sydney), at 24.9, with a wicket every 48 balls. That, like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid's batting record, is world class.

Unfortunately, India have only one Zaheer Khan. Whats more, they don't have a single Peter Siddle or Ben Hilfenhaus or Tim Bresnan.

Test Cricket is about playing for off stump. India have only three players who are masters of this, in any conditions. The others are good only in certain conditions. This limits their capacity to compete on result wickets, not as much as it once used to, but nevertheless, it still does. It goes without saying that Australia, England, South Africa or New Zealand are similarly structurally limited when they play in India. But that provides little comfort right now.