Kolkata Test Day 3 – "Battles" on and off the pitch

In my review of the first two days of the Kolkata Test, i speculated that Anil Kumble’s handling of Harbhajan Singh would be crucial, and that the Pakistan batsmen would take an aggressive approach against Harbhajan Singh especially. As it turned out, Kumble began with Harbhajan, who responded brilliantly with an exhibition of teasing flight and length. Bedi’s dictum about the perfect spinner’s length being the shortest possible length which would still have the batsman playing forward was on show. Both Salman Butt and Mohammad Yousuf were beaten by the flight and the trajectory. This was a Test Match bowler with 240+ Test wickets to his name giving us a demonstration of his skill.

That the Pakistan batting strategy dictated assertive batsmanship against Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble was immediatly evident. Harbhajan Singh landed one on middle stump, full enough for Younis Khan to whip away to the squarish mid-wicket fence. Kumble’s response was swift – the cover point moved over to mid-wicket. The game was now set. Harbhajan would attack the stumps with his stock delivery and occasional drag the batsman out to induce a cover drive. Or so Kumble thought. The next ball, Younis Khan aimed a reverse sweep to the vacant cover point region and missed. Before the over was done, Younis tried it again and got a boundary for his trouble. It seemed to put Harbhajan off. At the other end Misbah Ul-Haq brought out the sweep and the battle was well and truly joined.

Slowly but surely Pakistan’s batsmen repaired the early damage. Kumble was unable to build on the early advantage that Harbhajan’s first spell brought. Munaf Patel and Zaheer Khan got nothing out of the wicket or in the air. The ball stubbornly refused to deviate off the straight, and the forced change of ball didn’t help vis a vis reverse swing either. For their part, Akmal and Misbah were superb, reminscent of Akmal and Razzaq at Mohali in 2005. Whether their effort brings a similar result for Pakistan remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, off the pitch, there was much speculation. Dilip Vengsarkar left for Mumbai to attend to a bereavement in his family. This led to speculation that he had left the test match mid-way to protest the BCCI’s refusal to compensate him for lost income after they ordered him to stop writing his weekly newspaper column. Cricinfo clarified later that Vengsarkar had in fact threatened no such thing. The gist of that story is that there is a disagreement between the Chairman of the Selection Committee and his employers at BCCI about compensation. To this end, as the Cricinfo story reveals there is ongoing negotiation.

The press of course has its own dog in this fight. The BCCI diktat which has caused a spirited exchange of views anonymously in the press and behind closed doors between the selectors and BCCI, is also concerned with the selectors dealing with the press. The lack of a press conference is something that hurts the reportage. Hence, we get reports like the one on Express India, which stoops to the asinine depth of doubting a bereavement in the Chairman of selectors family (if this had to be brought up, it ought to have been easy enough to verify for any reporter worth his salt) and speculating about Vengsarkar threatening to resign. The press has been systematically constructing this “battle” off the pitch. In doing so they abuse their position of being above the fray. In this instance they are not in fact above the fray, as the outcome directly affects them. They would ideally like Vengsarkar to give press conferences again. But in their reportage of this story lies the the gist of the BCCI’s case against them, and the reason for its ban.

Sixty thousand or so have watched each day of the Kolkata Test at the Eden Gardens, many millions have watched it on TV, and possibly many more millions have followed the progress of the Test match on the news. As long as this interest persists, the nature of the coverage by the press will have limited importance. These skirmishes however will continue to reveal the standards which the press sets for itself.

The outcome of the Kolkata Test will be known by the end of play tomorrow, much like it was with the Delhi Test match. The Selector v BCCI (v Press) battle will be resolved soon as well. The team for the third test and the Australia series is to be announced before the end of the Kolkata Test match. This announcement will hopefully be accompanied with a clarification from BCCI and the selectors about the whole selectors v BCCI issue. Gary Kirsten’s appointment is also likely to be announced.

This press story linking a family bereavement to all alleged (by the press) threat by DBV to resign will be forgotten.