Delhi Test, Day 3

At the end of day 3, Pakistan are 167 ahead with 5 wickets in hand. In terms of the future of the Test match, the respective desired scripts are quite clear. India would like to wrap things up as quickly as possible and finish the game on day 4, while Pakistan would like to prolong their third innings and take the game into day 5. As it stands now, if India are left to get anything over 225 in the 4th innings, it’s going to be tough. Given India’s decent but less than decisive advantage in the first innings, the 4th innings comes into play, handing the advantage to the side batting first, especially in the subcontinent.

One cannot help contrast the approach taken by Mohammad Sami and Zaheer Khan with the bat. Both had a set batsman at the other end. Time was of no essence in both cases, yet, Zaheer, given the choice of playing like Shoaib on the one hand, and Sami on the other, chose the former approach. Not surprisingly, his fate was quite similar to Shoaib’s. VVS Laxman was left stranded. For his part, VVS leaves himself open to criticism due to his alleged lack of urgency, and his unwillingness to shield the tail. He is right to expect the tail to be able to keep the bowling out, and he is also right in my view to take each and every single on offer. That is not selfishness, its simply taking everything that is on offer. It is also one of the reasons why the approach taken by Kumble in the first innings, does have its merits (may be not so much at 8/150, but certainly in the kind of situation Shoaib Malik found his side in). VVS’s approach and batting style is a cogent argument for him being promoted ahead of Sourav Ganguly. India may just be missing a trick there. When batting with the tail, the opposition invariably tends to concentrate of dismissing the tailender, while ignoring the specialist bat. This would suit Ganguly tremendously, and with his great ability to out guess/think the bowler (honed in the high pressure arena of powerplays in ODI cricket), he may just take his test career to a new level. Coming back to Zaheer and Sami though – Sami kept out close to 16 overs, facing Kumble, Zaheer Khan and co. It is probably fair to expect Zaheer or Harbhajan to have been able to do the same between them against the Pakistan attack. They need look no further than their captain in their are looking for a fine approach.

The Indian new ball pair failed to provide a break through with the second innings and it was left to the spinners to do all the work. That India have managed 5 wickets is creditable in the circumstances. Anil Kumble as always has been the key. His ability to control the runs and threaten wickets remains unsurpassed among Indian bowlers. Harbhajan Singh must have been heartened by his classical off spinners dismissal of the prolific Mohammad Yousuf.

This Test match appears to be evenly poised at the end of day 3. Given the fact that the wicket is likely to wear, Pakistan are probably slightly ahead at this moment. Yet, if you look at the first innings, the 45 run difference is largely because India first let Pakistan make about 70 runs more than they should have in their first innings, and then made about 20-30 runs less than they should have in their first innings. India have not closed out the game in the first innings itself. As a result, they now face the very real possibility of heading to the Eden Gardens with a series to save. Teams batting second have won 10 times at the Kotla, while teams batting first have won only 5 times. But that is only half the story. In all but 1 of the 15 Test match which have yielded a results, the first innings lead/deficit been less than 50 runs. Fourth innings run chases however have been quite successful, the best of these being the West Indies scoring 5/276 in 1987-88. Teams have won despite first innings deficits, but in each of those cases, they have won in by demolishing the opposition in the third innings. India beat Australia in 1969-70 despite conceding a 60 odd run deficit by bowling out Australia for 107.

The first session of day 4 will be crucial. The winner of that session will win the Test match…

Trent Bridge Test, Day 4, Lunch – Erratic India, Watchful England

The point has been made that the “blame” or responsibility (a better word than blame) for India’s troubles at Lord’s lay with the middle order and not with the bowlers, who “came back strongly after the first day”. This view is fundamentally flawed and reveals a misunderstanding of the Test match contest in my view, and indeed the contest between bat and ball. The bowling today on the 4th morning, if it results in England going on to save the Test match, given the platform they have built, will illustrate why this is so.

The basic value of swing and seam, is that it is unplayable if the bowler gets it right. It doesn’t matter who the batsman is – if there is consistent seam and swing on offer, with a quality fast bowler who possesses control in operation, then it is almost certain that the batting line up (irrespective of names in that line up) will struggle. The converse of this is that if the bowlers get it wrong and bowl inconsistently, then the batting line up make runs. The difference between Lord’s and Trent Bridge is not that the Indian middle order was stung by criticism after Lord’s, it is that James Anderson bowled poorly at Trent Bridge, while he was brilliantly consistent at Lord’s. The sun shone for a while at Trent Bridge, which meant that the English attack lack the edge they had at Lord’s. Therefore, the pressure was not relentless and there were scoring opportunities on offer. In short, the English bowlers were unable to exert as much control at Trent Bridge compared to Lord’s on account of two reasons: their own accuracy and the conditions.

Similarly, the argument that the Indian bowlers actually did well at Lord’s by keeping England under 300 in both innings is flawed, because England got to 300 in the first innings because India bowled rubbish for most of that innings. Those runs are counted in the course of the Test match – yet it seems almost as though the lack of quality in the pace bowling ought not to matter, if you’ve been reading reports in the Indian cricket press recent.

Play on the 4th morning was yet another case of India’s mercurial bowling line up having one of their fitful sessions. There was swing on offer, yet too much of the bowling was wide, and Strauss was not made to play enough by either Sreesanth or Zaheer. They bowled very little that would have threatened the stumps, let alone actually been on the stumps. They allowed the English batsmen to leave easily outside off stump, and every time they actually strayed closer to the stumps, they beat the bat or had the batsman squared up. Zaheer was the best of the bowlers. RP and Sreesanth were not on song. Sreesanth especially seemed out of control with all his swearing and staring. As with Matt Prior yesterday, Sreesanth basically made a fool of himself and was spoken to by the umpire because things seemed to get out of hand. Somehow, this type of nonsense is quite popular with our Indian fans – erratic bowling, with no real control, coupled with arrogance. Give me the understated Munaf Patel who understands line and length (and actually bowls it) any day.

For the first time in this Test match, India have lost a session. The bowlers may yet make a “comeback”, and the batsmen (helped by England’s below par bowling effort) have given them enough of a cushion to still make a comeback – but the lack of quality and control in the bowling has hurt India for the whole of Kumble and Tendulkar’s career. Things have improved recently, but India are still one of the weakest pace attacks in the world – only West Indies are possibly weaker.

The key is control. In arithmetic terms – its a question of how many balls you can bowl exactly as you intend to bowl them. In Sreesanth’s case, that figure must to be somewhere in the low 30’s in percentage terms. Just to illustrate what im saying further – a for McGrath or Akram, a similar figure might have been 80-85. For Zaheer, it is probably 50-60 right now.

If you don’t believe what im saying about bowling and batting in Test cricket – check out the following two statistics:
1. How many “match-winning” Test innings has Brian Lara played after Curtly Ambrose retired?
2. How frequently has Lara reached 50 in a Test innings in England and in Australia in the last 10 years?

He is considered a “match-winning” batsman. Yet he’s won zero Tests in England and Australia since Ambrose retired. He’s reached 50 in 2 out of 18 innings in Australia in the last 10 years and in 4 out of 17 innings in England.

It is one of the most interesting dichotomies in the discussion about Test cricket in India. Everybody agrees to the principle that quality fast bowling is a non-negotiable necessity if you want to be a top class Test team. Yet, when it comes to assessing actual Test matches, poor fast bowling is often excused even when the conditions have clearly suited fast bowling, simply because the fast bowlers haven’t played a hundred Tests! So in effect the argument is – yes top class fast bowling is absolutely necessary to compete in Test cricket, but its the fault of the batsmen, because nothing much is expected from the fast bowlers anyways.

Judgements are made on Test cricket, while completely ignoring the contest between bat and ball!

Hopefully India will learn – its one of the advantages of bowling – it’s possible to make right in one good spell, the wrongs of 3-4 bad spells, while batsmen are allowed 2 mistakes per Test match. Its a beautifully designed contest – one which ought to be given its due when Test match performances are discussed.

Cricinfo’s lunch time headline reads – “Strauss and Vaughan dig deep” – they haven’t had to dig too deep, because three of the four bowlers haven’t bowled very well. India’ bowlers may eventually do well enough to make Strauss and Vaughan go away, but they won’t be able to recover the runs and time conceded while they weren’t bowling well. In the final analysis, both the good as well as the bad performance will count – whatever the “expectations” may be. The “expectations” play not part in the outcome of the Test match.