India paid for their series long inability to control the runs in the field in the last game of the ODI series. Conventional wisdom would have dictated that the captain winning the toss might field first. But so dismal has been the form of the Indian pace attack, that India had long abandoned the three paceman ploy for the six batsman ploy. Dravid was left with two equal choice – to revert back to a failed ploy which had so far given him absolutely no control in the field, or to place his batsmen in a difficult position and ask of them a match winning total on a bowler friendly London morning. As it happened, he seems to have made the wrong choice. But it would be a tough (and some would say heartless) judge who might castigate a captain for failing to guess right (this was a guess in the purest sense of the word).
There was a subtle change in India’s tactics at the top of the order. Gone was the early cautiousness. Sourav Ganguly seemed intent on delivering the match winning total very early in the innings and deemed it unnecessary to get a look in, or even look at the ball at times! He was worked over with some well directed purposeful short bowling, lost his rhythm and his normal footwork and eventually offered a tame poke outside off stump after many of his involuntary hook shots missed the fielders. Tendulkar at the other end was all correctness. He was shuffling back and across to cover the ball and never missed a single scoring opportunity.
The English bowling was hostile and each of the three England bowlers – Anderson, Broad and Flintoff bowled a superb basic length and were consistently quicker than their Indian counterparts. They do have a basic advantage in height, but they made it count.
Gambhir came in at number 3, and looked accomplished. His dismissal was the sort that indicates to the experienced watcher that the rub of the green is running against the batting side today. A perfectly executed pull shot – middled, well-timed, hit down towards the ground… landed in Luke Wright’s hands. Usually they might have said “a yard on either side would have meant four”, but here in this case, a foot might have sufficed.
Dravid came and was almost immediatly caught on the crease by a vicious Flintoff off cutter. Whether or not he edged it is immaterial, but Flintoff’s line and length in those 3 early overs (remember he’s returning from injury and playing with an injection to manage the injury) was an object lesson for ODI pacemen. Here is a bowler who has the priceless ability to control the runs. Tendulkar did score two boundaries off him, but those were down to Tendulkar taking tremendous risks – backing away and hitting over the infield on the off side. Then followed Tendulkar’s dismissal. It was a difficult call for the Umpire. I wouldn’t call it the worst decision Tendulkar has had this year. It was certainly extremely good bowling – good line, good length.
Robin Uthappa came in and proceeded to play with the confidence of a match winner until he played a nothing off drive down mid off’s throat. It was a nonchalant swat – neither lofted nor grounded, and he can expect good teams to trap him in that cover and mid off area often if he keeps that shot up. 10 years ago, such a shot, in such a situation might have invited the attention of the selectors in almost all of the major test playing nations. Today, nobody is likely to bat an eyelid.
From then on, it was a matter of survival, and once Yuvraj Singh was strangled by the superbly accurate Mascarenhas (note the line and length on that ball), it was all over bar the shouting. Dhoni made 50 and gave India something to bowl at, but as has been the case for most of this series, it was not apparent that India would in fact be able bowl with too much conviction.
Zaheer Khan’s opening over to England’s Matt Prior – a wicketkeeper batsman with a pronounced tendency to shuffle across his stumps, was illustrative of the problem with the Indian bowling this series. Two out of six balls were drifting down the leg side, one went for four leg byes and the other was a wide. Five runs conceded without the batsman playing a shot in anger. RP followed this up with a wide down the off side before the first delivery bowled in earnest yielded a wicket. Later, after a brief spurt of good bowling, Ian Bell was allowed 3 pull shots off rank long hops within a space of 2 overs and the pressure had eased. England were away. Three overs later, Sourav Ganguly produced yet another rank long hop and Bell moved to 27(31), and England to 61/2. The purpose here is to illustrate the ease with which runs are conceded against a batting side which is rebuilding. The English batsmen are match fit and in good form and are unlikely to miss out on gift wrapped offerings.
This lack of control has hurt India in this series. That is the urgent review that they need to conduct. The team needs depth, not just in the batting line up, but in the ODI bowling. The fielding needs similar review. The role of both Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad needs to be reviewed. Especially Venkatesh Prasad, who’s public questioning of Munaf Patel’s “attitude” left a lot to be desired. Rahul Dravid has never found occasion to publicly castigate one of his players and there is no reason for Prasad to do so. Within the team, im quite sure that Dravid lets rip occasionally, but in public, he does (as he must) always back his players to the hilt and defend them when required.
All things considered, in England, inspite of England depth in batting and bowling, and superior fielding, the end result was 3-4. It is fitting that the match that turned the series England’s way was won by Stuart Broad and Dmitri Mascarenhas. They have made the difference – Broad, Mascarenhas, Bopara and Wright and given England something that India had no answer too – all round depth.
The English pace attack looks promising. That they went into the final game 3-3 without a single telling contribution from their best ODI batsman is a testament to how well their team has contributed. India on the other hand needed something special from Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj or Dhoni to stay abreast of England. Ian Chappell’s “p
The better team won at the end of the day…..
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