Melbourne Test – Review

Australia beat India by 337 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the Border Gavaskar Trophy on Day 4 at Melbourne. The story of Day 4 of the Boxing Day Test was much like that on Days 1, 2 and 3 – Australia dominated. India were outclassed with both bat and ball in this game.

Reports will suggest that the Indian bowlers did well. But on a suspect wicket, Australia managed 40.82 runs per wicket (694/17 in the match) against the Indian bowlers at almost 4 runs per over. How many sides have won Test matches after conceding those many runs? When India batted they encountered a bowling and fielding unit that was relentlessly top class. The Indian batsmen never mastered Stuart Clark and Brett Lee, and Mitchell Johnson was able to bowl well enough to keep the batsmen quiet. The slow outfield further accentuated the difference in fielding level between the two sides. The current Australian side is possibly the greatest all round fielding side in Test history. Symonds, Clarke, Hussey and Ponting are all world class fieldsmen in the Jonty Rhodes class. Bradley Hogg is not far behind. Brett Lee is probably the finest fieldsman amongst the fast bowlers of the world. Mitchell Johnson is probably a better fielder than any Indian barring Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar. It’s easy for Australia to hide Stuart Clark in the field. Only Tendulkar and Yuvraj amongst the Indian top order have an eye for the quick run comparable to any of the Aussies.

These are just all the generic realities which were in evidence in this Test. In addition to all these shortcomings, India’s most dependable batsman overseas finds himself in a terrible bind form wise. He can get the ball off the square. What’s more, India have asked him to open the batting! This gets him stuck, and also gets the other batsman stuck. Whats more, with his tenacious desire to not throw his hand away, he prolongs the agony for himself and his side, and allows the opposition to get on top. Any bowler will tell you that the best possible thing to do is to bowl at a batsman who is out of form and can’t get the ball off the square. Further, they are uncertain of their bowling combination. Harbhajan Singh is not quite the bowler he once was. RP Singh has looked ineffective. Further, they lost an important toss on an iffy wicket (more about the wicket later).

This series is looks like it will go exactly as every other home series under Ricky Ponting’s captaincy has gone for Australia – an easy triumph. Ponting has not lost a single Test match as captain in Australia. This is now his 4th home season at the helm. What do the visitors do from here?

The Indian strategy was always going to be to try and stay with the Aussies, especially in the first innings and to wait for a moment to sneak into a potentially winning position somewhere. They have failed to do so at Melbourne. The turning point was Tendulkar’s wicket at 3/120 in the first innings. He was batting like a bomb and had managed to overcome the early advantage which the Aussies had achieved thanks to Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer’s inability to rotate the strike (the quality of the Aussie fielding had something to do with this). Had he gone on to make a hundred, India might have accomplished their task of competing on the first innings. The key advantage of competing on the first innings, is that it puts the Aussies under pressure at the business end of the game. They would not put in the same clinical world beating flawless show that they did today if they had the pressure of the scoreboard and a realistic threat of defeat. India have to find a way to compete on the first innings.

Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman all look in reasonably good form. Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Dhoni never got going, so no real conclusion can be drawn as to their position. Rahul Dravid is obviously struggling and his cause has not been helped by him being asked to open the batting. Wasim Jaffer has had one of his characteristically ordinary Test matches. Going by his track record since his comeback against England in 2006, he ought to make runs in atleast one innings at Sydney. Sourav Ganguly is batting too low in the batting order given his terrific form. VVS Laxman is not quite the batsman he was in 2003-04, and may not be suited to number 3. In fact, even in 2003-04, Laxman’s success came at number 5.

As i see it, India have only 2 realistic options going into the Sydney Test, given their squad and the current form of their players. In batting order, these would be

Jaffer, Karthik, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Yuvraj, Irfan, Kumble, Zaheer, Harbhajan

OR

Jaffer, Karthik, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Irfan, Kumble, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Ishant

The latter option would be a bold move – playing 5 bowlers, giving India a chance to compete with the ball, because let’s face it, India are not going to win too many Test matches conceding 41 runs/wicket. There are those who will argue however, that playing 5th bowler who is not exactly Wasim Akram won’t be much use from the wicket taking point of view. They would be making a good point.

RP Singh has not looked threatening and doesn’t quite possess the required variety of arrows in his quiver to make him a truly threatening bowler in conditions where the ball doesn’t seam all day. Besides, there is a sameness to the Indian attack with Zaheer and RP playing in the same eleven.

Harbhajan Singh’s form has been patchy, but India will just have to hope he comes good. It can’t do his confidence any good that the Australian left handed opening pair were able to sweep him against the break without once lobbing the ball up in the air. That he was bowling without a short fine leg, suggests that he didn’t expect the traditional miscue either. If the Sydney wicket is like it is reputed to be (Melbourne did not behave like it was supposed to), he might get an opportunity to come good. Speaking of wickets, if a Melbourne like wicket had been offered in India, one can imagine the furore that would have ensued against BCCI.

Using Ganguly at number 3 would break up the string of right handers which the Australians are able to bowl at in the current line up. Besides, he’s in form and has hinted more than once that he would prefer to bat higher up the batting order.

It would however be a mistake in my view to persist with Rahul Dravid opening the batting, especially given his current form. I suspect though, that India will persist with him. There is no pressure to leave him out of the playing eleven, not when the available option is Virender Sehwag, whose form if anything has been even more woeful. If Sehwag has to be played, he will be played at the expense of Wasim Jaffer. Sehwag brings his off breaks to the side in addition to the possibility of a swashbuckling, aggressive century.

The magnitude of this defeat dictates significant changes for Sydney. It may be too late from the point of view of the series by the time the Perth Test comes around. It remains to be seen how the Indian team management reacts. Will they gamble with Sehwag? Or will they go back to the tried and tested combination of Jaffer-Karthik and leave Dhoni out? Do they consider leaving Dhoni out to be an option at all?

Whatever the answer to those questions may be, the great lesson of the Boxing Day Test is that Australia are as world class as ever. Their batting is as strong as ever, as is their bowling depth. Their Test match fielding is unparalleled. All in all, they are the best team in the world by a long margin.

Well played Australia…..

Melbourne Test – Day 3

India’s only hope of ending Day 3 on even remotely even terms with the hosts was to bowl them out cheaply in their second innings. At 4/161, India seemed to have made some progress in this direction. Andrew Symonds came along and produced a quick fire 42 which reduced India to waiting for the declaration. India could not find their Stuart Clark – someone who could run through the lower middle order. Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh toiled manfully as India hoped to delay the Australian declaration. It was all in all a difficult day. When bowlers toil manfully, it usually means they’re fighting a losing battle. The bowling attack has been bested. India showed in the first innings of the match that they had the ability to keep the Australian batting in check. However, the manner of the Australian dismissals indicated that the Aussie batsmen contributed to the dismissals as much as India’s bowlers. When India batted, their batsmen were bested by the quality of Clark and Lee. Tendulkar and Ganguly apart, all the other Indian batsmen were beaten and dismissed. At the end of Day 3 of the boxing day test, it is fair to say that India have been outclassed with both bat and ball.

Australia added to the “aggression” myth by declaring with 8 overs to spare on the third day – a useless declaration in my view, with two full days remaining. These decisions seem to be mainly for public consumption. They reinforce the perception of a relentless juggernaut, not willing to concede an inch. If it was simply a case of wanting to win the Test match, they could have batted tomorrow until they got bowled out and still won it. After all, is anybody arguing that they may bowl India out in 188 overs but not in 150? If the declaration was supposed to have surprised the Indian batsmen, im almost certain that it didn’t. India knew at tea or even earlier that such a declaration was a possibility. Further, given Rahul Dravid’s terrible form, would it not have been better to declare overnight and let Dravid walk out tomorrow with the prospect of having to survive an entire day, without giving him the benefit of an easier target – that of having to bat out 8 overs? As it happened, he walked out, took first strike and played out the day.

Whatever happens tomorrow, what one hopes for is that India are able to make the Australians sweat for their wickets. Test matches are rarely won in 4th innings run chases which are the result of declarations. In fact, the only time in recent years when this has been accomplished successfully was when Graeme Smith made a quixotic declaration on the last day in desperate quest of a series leveling victory. Ricky Ponting on that occasion played a brilliant innings (in his 100th Test match) to win the game for Australia. So chances of an Indian victory are slim.

My hopes, strangely enough, are pinned on Rahul Dravid. He’s out of form, low on confidence and has looked quite ordinary at the crease. He is a great batsman however, and i want him to do well very badly. It would be a shame if he lost his place in the side if India lost tomorrow itself. He has shown a lot of character in resigning from the captaincy, accepting that he was not enjoying the job and that it had had an adverse effect on his batting. This is of course in sharp contrast to his predecessor who was clearly in denial when he was dropped in 2005. To this day, Ganguly maintains that “the manner of his dismissal” was not right. This of course begs the question – how would he have liked to have been brought face to face with reality? It would be a shame if Rahul Dravid were unable to find second wind from somewhere and come back from the brink. He is not given to such dramatic streaks. His has been a steady, relentless ascent to the pinnacle of batsmanship. He deserves a break.

It is with this naive hope that events will break in India’s and Dravid’s favor, that i look forward to Day 4 of the Melbourne Test. On Dravid’s accomplished shoulders lie the hopes of India in this series opener. They may be out of rythm right now, but they are also best suited to guide an Indian revival. There is on other suggestion. The in-form left handed Ganguly at number 3 would test the Australian bowlers and given them the challenge of bowling to a left hand right hand bowling combination. Promoting in form batsmen to number three has traditionally worked for India in the past as Ganguly will know.

India have been well and truly beaten so far in this game. With the weather set fair for days four and five, an inconclusive result is out of the question. Australias batsmen looked untroubled against the Indian bowling today, and India will take heart from that.

Melbourne Test – Day 1

Ricky Ponting won the toss and elected to bat against India in the first Test at Melbourne today. There was much speculation about the pitch, but India’s decision to play 2 spinners, Australia’s decision to play Bradley Hogg and Ponting’s decision to bat first, tell us what Ponting and Kumble thought about the wicket. It was not the lightning quick fast bowler’s paradise that Glenn McGrath had hoped for a few weeks ago.

Yet, in the first half an hour, the Australian openers survived on a prayer. They played and missed, edged a few, but were still there at the first drinks break. They kept going for their shots and went to lunch undefeated with a stand of 111. It was a typical Australian morning at a ground where they’ve won their last 8 Test matches. With the expectation that the wicket would ease in the aftenoon, there was much much speculation that Australia had pretty much set the tone for the series. They had a century opening stand at better than 4 an over.

The first hour after lunch changed all that. With aggressive intent came an air of casualness. Phil Jaques tried to push a seemingly harmless Kumble delivery out to mid off without getting to the pitch of the ball, only to find that the ball had sneaked past his outside edge for Dhoni to effect an expert stumping. Ricky Ponting came in and with 60 Test hundreds between the two players at the wicket for Australia on a flat wicket, things seemed to have gotten better, not worse for Australia. Zaheer Khan had other ideas however, for he produced the ball of the day to dismiss Ricky Ponting. It was a beauty from round the wicket, pitched on a perfect length which drew Ponting into the on drive only to seam away towards off stump. Ponting was squared up and bowled. Michael Hussey came in, and now India were faced with two left handers again. But the Australians continued to convey an casual air and Michael Hussey missed straight one from Kumble and was hit on the back pad. It was one of those split second decisions from the umpire. It was a 50-50 call, but luckily for Kumble, Umpire Benson seems to be the kind of Umpire who will invariably find in the bowlers favor if the batsman is hit on the back leg and everything else seems to be reasonably acceptable. Hussey may be forgiven for feeling undone since the ball appeared to be sliding past off stump, but he will know that once he was hit on the back leg, it was more than likely that he would be sent on his way. Michael Clarke came in and began circumspectly against some tight bowling. At the other end, Mathew Hayden was nearing his hundred and raced through the 90’s undeterred by the 3 wickets which fell at the other end.

The tight bowling however took its toll. Hayden had reach his hundred in 126 balls. With Clarke he shared a partnership of 60 in 20 overs, in which Clarke made 20(60). Eventually, the right hander’s patience ran out and he chased a wide one from the persevering RP Singh and was on his way once VVS took a smart catch low down to his right at second slip. RP Singh didn’t have his best day, but if he erred it tended to be towards a wide offside line, and not down the leg side. The stand with Clarke had spoilt Mathew Hayden’s rythm, and after scoring 24(58) after his century, he offered a tame catch to Sourav Ganguly at mid on off Zaheer Khan. There was a continual threat about Zaheer Khan’s bowling and he bowled better than he 3/93 off 22 overs suggest.

Once Hayden went, Kumble took charge. Symonds and Gilchrist threatened a typically aggressive stand before Symonds failed to control a pull shot of Kumble to be caught at mid wicket. It was the sort of dismissal you would see from a batsman who was being belligerent without really getting a measure of the wicket. One felt for a while during the Symonds-Gilchrist stand (they added 40 in less than 10 overs), that Kumble had missed a trick by keeping the 2 left arm pacemen on and not bringing on the off spinner while Gilchrist was new at the wicket, given the southpaw wicketkeeper’s troubles against India’s spinners in the past (Anil Kumble has dismissed him 7 times while Harbhajan Singh has done so 6 times). But Kumble’s plan worked and both Gilchrist and Symonds well trying to force the pace. This was one occasion when Australias trademark belligerence did not work.

Hogg and Lee, who are not traditional tail enders by any means (Hogg has a first class average of nearly 35, while Lee averages 21 with the bat in Tests) should have been exactly the type of tailenders to produce the kind of stand which has driven Indian captains to distraction in the past. This time however, the new ball accounted for Hogg and a Kumble special accounted for Lee.

Hogg was dismissed in the 87th over of the day. It would have been the perfect day for India had they bowled the Australians out in the 88th over. It would have meant that they would have been able to start their innings tomorrow. The Aussie last wicket pair had other ideas and their 25 run last wicket stand spoilt what would have been the perfect end to a fine first day for the visitors.

Anil Kumble and Zaheer Khan were the stand out bowlers for India. At the beginning of the day, India would have been happy to restrict the Australians to a first innings of less than 350. They nearly managed it with a rousing post-lunch come back . If the Aussie last wicket manages a further 25 runs tomorrow, then these last wicket runs could prove crucial in the context of this Test match.

The bowlers have delivered for India on Day 1. It’s over to the batsmen…

Melbourne Test – Where will Rahul Dravid bat?

Rahul Dravid opened the batting for India in the game against Victoria. The Indian team management is clearly toying with the idea of rethinking the batting order to accommodate Yuvraj Singh after his tremendous century at Bangalore. Given the composition of the Indian squad, they have a number of options available to them, assuming that they will play 4 specialist bowlers.

They could retain the opening pair of Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer. This would allow them to play 5 more specialist batsmen, assuming that Dinesh Karthik keeps wicket. The line up would then read Karthik, Jaffer, Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Laxman, Yuvraj. This will mean that Mahendra Dhoni misses out. Alternatively, they could drop Dinesh Karthik, and ask Rahul Dravid to open the batting. This disrupts the rest of the batting order, but gives India the opportunity to play Dhoni at number 7. Further, it gives India the opportunity to play either VVS Laxman or the in form Sourav Ganguly at number 3.

The first choice would be the conservative, safe option. It is tried and tested, and has worked well in South Africa and England. The second option would involve greater risk, and also possibly greater reward. The real question for India is where they want the wicket keeper to bat – Dinesh Karthik opening the batting, or Mahendra Dhoni at number 7. The Dinesh Karthik option would give them a deeper batting line up, but a weaker opening pair, while the Mahendra Dhoni will give a stronger opening pair, but a batting line up which is less deep. The first option would be considered “defensive” or “defeatist” and further fuel a growing perception amongst watchers the Kumble’s India are a conservative cricket team. The second option, where Dravid opens the batting, would be viewed as more aggressive and also fuel the legend of Dravid the “team-man”. It will be interesting to see what choices Kumble will make.

The wicket, which at this point is the great unknown may influence Kumble’s decision more than anything else. If Kumble and Harbhajan Singh both play, then India may well go with Rahul Dravid. Wickets on which Kumble and Harbhajan prove to be effective are likely to offer less help to fast bowling, there by making Dhoni more effective in the late order. If the wicket allows India to play 3 pace bowlers, then Dinesh Karthik may well play, as India will be well served with a deeper batting order. Dinesh Karthik in any case, has shown a peculiar tendency to favor overseas conditions when opening the batting. Hence, a fast bowler friendly wicket may engender a deeper line up, while a drier wicket will probably see India playing Dhoni.

There is of course the Sehwag option, which would be a big risk, given Sehwag’s lack of form and given the fact that he didn’t play against Victoria. That the tour match was rained off has not helped India. I would be very surprised if Sehwag played at the MCG.

The question at the end of the day will be dictated by the wicket. Dravid at number 3 would be the best possible option in my view. Most importantly it would be a vote of confidence in him. Sourav Ganguly though, is a man with a sense of occasion, and i wouldn’t be surprised at all if he bats at number 3 in his 100th Test match and makes a century in front of a full house at the MCG!

That would be some story….