An Opinion About A Line Up In Disarray

The verdict seems to be nearly universal. India's batting is in disarray. With the exception of Sachin Tendulkar, every batsman in the top 7 has struggled in Australia, and with the exception of a rapidly ageing (in a cricketing sense) Rahul Dravid, every batsman is in long term trouble. There may be signs that Gautam Gambhir is beginning to require some discipline around off stump. And there may be signs that VVS Laxman may be back amongst the runs with his 66. Lets not forget that he made 176 only 4 Tests ago. I wrote in my series preview that India have an age problem in their batting - their batsmen are all getting old.



VVS Laxman is coming to the end of an illustrious career. Sadly, it is very likely that the end of his career (132 Tests, 8697 runs, 17 centuries) will be a casualty of the general spring cleaning that is going on. I felt, at the start of the West Indies series, that VVS should have declared that he would retire from Test Cricket after the Kolkata Test Match. This would have allowed the selectors to blood a couple of young batsmen at the Wankhede, and reset expectations for Australia. But I do not blame him for wanting to tour Australia. In the end, he was probably right to do so, especially if he thinks he has another year or so in him.

Rahul Dravid has aged dramatically since his century at the Oval. The wickets in India and the West Indies bowling masked this to some extent, but he has been uncharacteristically late on the ball all too often in Australia. It may well be that he feels otherwise, and in all seriousness (i say this because i want to emphasize in this post, that I am not about to beat up on a set of wonderful batsmen just because they are down), I think he may well be right. Even an ageing Rahul Dravid with his long experience, is irreplaceable.

Tendulkar, is, well, Tendulkar. He shows no signs of ageing. Indeed, between 2006 and 2011, he seems to have gotten younger. His method outside off stump has reverted (or regressed, if, like me, you preferred the careful Tendulkar from 10 years ago - his 193 at Headingley in 2002, 136 at Chennai in 1999 and 116 at Melbourne in 1999 are for me, the perfect Tendulkar innings) to a more cavalier style reminiscent of the mid-1990s.

Virender Sehwag is a genuine problem for India. He lacks the technique to play the moving ball, always has. He has, for years, winged it, and winged it well. But methods are self-reinforcing. Careful batting begets more careful batting. It also internalizes what careful batting means. Similarly, cavalier batting means more cavalier batting. I think the selectors were absolutely right to drop Sehwag after the 2006-07 South Africa tour, where he similarly struggled on wickets where the ball moved a bit. At age 33 he is not getting any younger. And like VVS Laxman, he does not have the batting technique to keep age at bay, especially against the brand new ball.

Sehwag's great talent is the ability to score quickly. He relies on batting in a way that makes it impossible for bowlers to deliver a decent line and length. On wickets where the ball moves, bowlers beat him often enough to believe that persisting in a line and length around off stump will be valuable. If you've noticed, Sehwag's failures in South Africa, England and now Australia, have not come against the short ball, but against the ball outside off stump.

I have for many years believed that there is a method to Sehwag's apparently devil-may-care approach outside off stump. And I still believe that at his best, there is. But it is extremely difficult to play in that cavalier way, and still retain the ability to discern danger from opportunity.

Even though Sehwag may score runs in Australia, especially at Adelaide (the favorite ground of a certain type of cavalier batsman - it has been the refuge of even the great Brian Lara - he averaged 43 in Australia, but 32 at grounds other than Adelaide, and made nearly half his runs in Australia in 4 Tests at that ground. Chris Gayle is another batsman who made big runs at Adelaide, as did a lot of English batsmen), his days of facing the new ball must surely be numbered. He has said he would prefer to bat at Number 4 in the Test team. It is time to grant him his wish.

It is also time, I think to reset expectations from this line up. It has, for a whole decade, carried a mediocre pace attack that shows no signs of improving quality-wise (even if it has improved in terms of depth). Zaheer apart, India have not seen another fast bowler in the 2000s who has looked like he could be a Test Match fast bowler and then delivered on that promise. Ishant Sharma, everyone says, is young. But he has now played nearly 40 Tests. The current line up, which has served India for most of the 2000s, has set a standard for what a world class Test middle should achieve. For India's Test team to reach the next level, they need to now find a Test fast bowling attack that can set a standard for what a world class Test pace attack should achieve.

There appears to be some hope at the batting level. Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane have the record to stake their claims in the Test team, as do a few others. We would do well to remember however, that what made this line up, apart from amazing talent (which means, the ability, in practice, to cope with genuine pace, the ability to score in front of the wicket off fast bowling, the ability to play spin), was batting technique. The difference between Tendulkar and Dravid, and the other batsmen, is their superior technique. This is what allows them to "fight" even when they are not in form and the bowling is difficult. Technique gives you the means to keep good bowling out. This in turns creates the possibility of surviving difficult periods.

There is plenty of rhetoric about "fight", from the Editor of Cricinfo downwards. But just as bowlers need endless practice (bowling long spells in first class matches, and no part of this is negotiable in my view) to develop control and bowl accurately, to their fields (this can mean bowling very accurately when you are bowling to top quality batsmen on good wickets), to be able to actually "fight" or compete, batsmen need technique.

And technique is not just about knowing what the correct way of playing is, it is being able to practice it in a match. I don't think VVS Laxman is a lesser man than Tendulkar or Dravid because he struggles (the figures suggest this) on wickets where the ball moves - his technique is simply not suited to these conditions.

A lot of people, especially writers, don't like this technique explanation. They quickly point to stray innings by Virender Sehwag - but the rule, even for Sehwag, has been that he struggles in conditions where the ball moves. We have seen, thanks to ball tracking (in its original form as an enhancement to the cricket broadcast), the consistent deviation off the wicket, which, if ball tracking was used as an enhancement to broadcast in Test in India, we would see doesn't happen in India, unless there is reverse swing.

Sometimes they also point to the 8697 Test runs that VVS has scored. The ball doesn't always move, and VVS has the ability to score runs in front of the wicket against fast bowling (this is not a trivial ability, very few FC batsmen have this capacity).

So what should India do? Be biased in favor of batsmen with tight techniques - techniques on which a Test match temperament can be developed.

It would be a mistake to think only about the batting. The bowling remains the deeper structural problem with no solution in sight. India were unable to bowl the first 80 overs of the Australian innings using their 4 specialist bowlers. I mentioned this in an earlier post, and a reader wrote a comment about this, pointing out that Australia used Hussey, Warner and Clarke as well. I agree, and the  reason is clear - Nathan Lyon is not able to perform the role of a specialist spinner. But for Australia, it is 1 out of 4 bowlers that is the problem. For India it is 3 out of 4 bowlers. This has been the case throughout the England Tests as well.

Given this, I think India should make use of Ravichandran Ashwin's undoubted talents with the bat, and his background as an opener. They ought to use him as an opener and 5th bowler in the remaining Tests in Australia. Sehwag should bat at number 6 and use his enormous talents to bat with the tail (and with Dhoni).

My line up for the Perth Test would be:

Ravichandran Ashwin
Gautam Gambhir
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Rohit Sharma
Virender Sehwag
MS Dhoni
Zaheer Khan
Ishant Sharma
Umesh Yadav
Abhimanyu Mithun

This is based on a stereotype about the WACA wicket - that it will be a fast bowlers pitch.

In conclusion, I will say this. If the expectations from India's fast bowlers were even remotely similar to those from India's batsmen, only Zaheer Khan would make that XI. Unfortunately, India don't have fast bowlers, and the ones that they have, don't bowl very much (Ishant Sharma being the prime example).

If India's fans think that a India's Test team is going to reach a standard that it anywhere close to what India achieved in 2010, then they are in for a shock. Without fast bowling, India will remain a middle-of-the-table side, unless there is another Tendulkar and Dravid and Laxman waiting to be discovered. That, I think, is unlikely.