Too many malfunctions…. handicapped India on the brink of series defeat.

Ravi Bopara, who wants to be England’s Sachin Tendulkar and Stuart Broad who wants to establish himself as an ODI all rounder produced a measured, level-headed 99 run stand in about 25 overs to steer England to an important victory at Old Trafford in the ongoing NatWest series.

Old Trafford is reputedly the quickest wicket in England these days and there was ample evidence of this as Sourav Ganguly and three Englishmen fell due to the extra pace and bounce on offer. India have had 6 performers in this series so far – Tendulkar, Dravid, Yuvraj and to a lesser extent Sourav Ganguly and the spinners. The pacemen have been dismal and the fielding has been less than fleet-footed. Against an English side which seems to discover new talents almost every game, carrying 5 passengers and 11 poor fielders has been an enormous handicap. The 1-3 score line is fair at this stage in the series.

Rahul Dravid can take whatever decision he wants to at the toss, but if his (fast) bowlers don’t support him, anything he does is doomed from the start. A great example of this no show by the pace bowlers, was Zaheer Khan’s no show in his second spell at a crucial phase in the game today. As Bopara and Broad were trying to establish themselves, much of the commentary seemed to disagree with the Indian captain’s strategy of persisting with the two spinners instead of bringing back his pace spearheads and go for the kill. I would not go so far as to suggest that this belief was based on a overly simplistic connection between pace and effectiveness, but i would suggest that peoples view of the Indian ODI pace attack (especially with the older ball) varies sharply with Rahul Dravid’s. In my view, Rahul Dravid has got it right. Why do i think so? Just take a look at Zaheer’s two over spell – overs 35 and 37 of the innings where he went for 15 runs in 2 overs. Of those 15 runs, there were two four balls – one drifting down leg (after expressly setting a field with fine leg square and the extra fielder on the off side) and the other short and wide outside off stump. Any batsman worth his salt with some batting ability (which the English tail doubtless has – more on this later) would have hit both. Add to this one unbelievable backfoot off drive which Chris Broad might have been proud of, and you have Dravid’s trump card failing him miserably. RP Singh doesn’t look like he can lead an attack and so his efforts as a support bowler ought not to come under too much harsh criticism.

In 50 overs, there is a limit to what the captain can do with his bowling changes given the 10 over restriction. The spinners were bowling well – they were beating the bat and inducing errors. With a bit of luck one of them might have broken through. It was not to be.

Should India have made more than 213? Take into account the following:

1. India’s long tail (because we don’t have a player who can bat and bowl – like Flintoff or Broad or Giles)
2. The English pace attack – superior to Indias in quality, depth and pace
3. The English batting’s efforts against the Indian new ball attack – in my view they played too many strokes and gave India too many wickets – the dismissals of Pietersen, Bell and Ganguly, and Tendulkar’s stubborn refusal to hook or pull should give you a good idea about the wicket.

Considering all that, Tendulkar and Yuvraj played terrific innings. Both were dismissed just when they were about to take the attack to English bowlers. After three good games, Dravid had a failure and Dinesh Karthik further underlined the fact that he’s not quite ready to play the number 3 role in ODI cricket. He seems in many ways to be the anti-Sehwag. Sehwag was able to establish a great batting rythm in Test cricket – his natural ability to hit the ball, along with the opportunity to bat without the pressure of the run rate enabled him to play his game in his own comfort zone. In ODI Cricket, the same Sehwag lost his ability to be discerning in his choice of balls to hit and basically tried to the wham bang approach, which didn’t work. With Karthik its the same. He seems to be far more comfortable building an innings in Test cricket. In ODI cricket, the pressure of having played out a maiden the previous over seems to get to him. This may be a hasty judgement, but like Sehwag he seems to have found it difficult to make the adjustment – albeit from the other side (if you see what i mean). Dhoni fell to a beauty from Panesar – the sort of ball spinners dream about.

There are questions about the batting line up though. The obvious question is – if Tendulkar and Ganguly were going to open the batting, why did the selectors pack the reserve batting with two opening batsmen and a wicketkeeper batsman? Should Tendulkar and Ganguly be opening at all? In Tendulkar’s case it seems Ok – because he seems to play better opening the innings. He can also play in the middle order – and do well by any standards, but as an opener he’s in a class by himself – on this England tour in 7 matches against top opposition, he’s reached 50 4 times in conditions where the new ball offers the severest threat during the innings. With Ganguly its a similar matter, but in his case his limitations with regard to rotation of strike and running between the wickets, in addition to his own obvious preference seem to dictate this. The rotation of strike issue is uncharacteristic. It seems to be a recent problem. But its serious problem for India because not only does it slow down Ganguly’s own scoring, it puts extra pressure on the player at the other end because he’s effectively denied the strike for a large number of deliveries.

India need to rethink their batting order for the next game. The Dinesh Karthik experiment is not working. Neither is the Ganguly experiment in my view. India have little choice on the 5 bowler front. It is also a sound strategic idea in the long term.

Right now though, they need to stem the rot and win something. Teamwork worked in the Test series. In the ODI game, its time for someone to put up a marquee performance in the 5th game. If India cannot find XI contributions, they must find 1-2 extraordinary ones. Like the NatWest Final in 2002. That result confirmed the reputation of Ganguly’s team. Yet that particular game was a result of India playing absolute rubbish when they were bowling and for all but 30 overs of their run chase. That win was down to the individual brilliance of Kaif and Yuvraj more than anything else. India need a brilliant hundred or a brilliant spell from somewhere. Given their recent track record, the former is more likely. And it is Yuvraj who threatens most to find an innings that will blow England away and destroy their momentum more than anyone else in the Indian line up.

Lets wait and watch……