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Nice men don't win

Now that another Test series overseas has gone by, the Indian media is filled with post-mortems and the usual reasons and excuses. Batsmen failed, bowlers didn't keep up the aggression, and less said about fielding the better it is. What strikes me is in contrast with the optimism which surrounded the Indian team before they left the country.

Apart from K. Srikkanth (who in his columns kept saying how deplorable standards were when the Indian attack couldn't even dispose of the mediocre New Zealand team) no other ex-cricketer/journalist even remotely had a clue about the ultimate outcome. So Mr. Lele was absolutely right after all. As a fan who has been following the fortunes of Indian cricket, it was as clear as daylight why the Indian team won't do well.

I know it is easier to be wise in hindsight, but seriously a team which collapses to 83 all out in a mere 27 overs just a few weeks previously - against Cairns and Nash on a pitch which Tendulkar later described as one of the deadest he has ever played on - really had no hope against the likes of McGrath et al. The usual excuses were lack of quality opening batsmen which tended to expose the highly rated middle-order. Well here is the opening stands of the Aussies - 8,1,4,5 and 9 in the 5 innings they played.

Harsha Bhogle in the ABC commentary box kept harping on the fact that Dravid and Tendulkar kept coming in at 10/2 or some such score. But then Dravid has always been doing that thoughout his career and had compiled an average close 70 overseas. The problem was more basic.

It took an Australian to point that out. Even in the third Test when teams should have been getting used to the pace and bounce Indian batsmen continued to play with high backlifts and had trouble avoiding short deliveries. Dean Jones said that if Tendulkar in '98 could scuff up an area outside his leg stump and ask leggies to pitch in the rough to him to gain valuable practice for facing Warne; surely somebody should have thought of the batsmen having a go at the nets - perhaps with tennis balls from a distance of 15 yards to face some 'chin music'. Now if this was actually done, then maybe the batsmen need to have a serious rethink about their techniques.

If Dravid's loss of form and confidence was unfortunate, Ganguly's performance was inexplicable. Here is a batsman who looked good every time he went to the crease, and yet his scores declined as the tour went on. Getting out to somebody like Blewett twice and both times on the first ball he faced from that bowler surely is disgraceful.

The problem here was more mental than technical. It may be recalled that as far back as '97 when after returning from the WI tour, Tendulkar as captain was quoted as saying that the team needed a psychologist. The last we heard of, the team doesn't have one. In fact so behind the times we are in comparison with rest of the teams that the acquiring of a digital camera by the team management made big news. One would have thought recording and analysing not just your own techniques but the opposition's as well would be a matter of routine. Not so, with this Indian team. As can be evidenced by fact that the number of times Gilchrist or Ponting pulled or the number of times Steve Waugh cut a short ball outside his off-stump. It was most distressing to hear the commentary while this was happening.

'Homework' is the usual parlance to describe this, which the Indian team seemed to disregard as only errant schoolboys can. Maybe the way to go is a specialized back-up team like New Zealand has. When, if at all, that might happen is anyone's guess. Mine would be the year 3000.

Another theory going round is biased umpiring and match refereeing. Clearly Tendulkar was hard done by 50/50 decisions going against him not just once but thrice. Surely McGrath deserves more than just a censure by the ICC match referee. Langer really should never have been allowed to cross 50 in the series. But the point is - good teams make their own luck. Every time a decision went against them, the bowlers seemed to lose their focus. This is not to discount the fact that crucial decisions did go against the Indians. The most crucial amongst them, to my mind was Gilchrist been given not out at 5/206 in the first innings at Melbourne. The umpire concerned apparently did not consult the square-leg umpire at all, which is the usual practice when an instance about a ball having carried is in doubt.

Both Gilchrist and Ponting were new at the crease and with only the bowlers to follow, India surely must have fancied their chances on a pitch which had lost the sting from a fresh first morning. But that was not to be. On the evidence of only one highly unclear reply being available the third umpire had to rule that not out.

What is galling is the fact the Indian team management's response or lack thereof to such instances. Back just a year ago, when after having been bowled out by Kumble at Delhi, Wasim Akram had ranted and raved about the umpiring, the quality of pitch etc. He certainly did not fear the ICC code in what he thought was a rightful comment. Sure enough no action was brought on against him.

Compare it to the way the Indians were treated by the umpires, firstly in the match against New South Wales and then in the third Test. It's almost like an attitude of a school teacher trying to scold a kid for speaking out of turn. Surely an international cricket team cannot allow itself to be treated in such a manner. What, if anything, the Indian management did about this one might never know. But sometimes the act of even being seen to be doing something rather than just actually doing it is also important.

Witness how Akram stood up for his pace bowler as soon as Shoaib Akhtar was banned. Contrast it with the Indian team's response to the way Hair first spoke with Agarkar, Ganguly et al and then just yesterday - the Aussie Test umpiring panel issuing a statement which was interpreted in the Aussie media as 'put up or shut up' - on the racial bias issue. For all the talk going around, nobody from the Indian team has even remotely mentioned anything about umpiring decisions or bans related to bias so how they can put up with such an outrageous statement is amazing.

It all comes down to attitude, I guess. Peter Roebuck mentioned it that the whole atmosphere of playing in Australia with the aggressive media and umpires who like to believe in taking control rather remain in background - makes it very difficult for teams to do well. He suggested the captains to have done well over there - Clive Lloyd, Imran, Ranatunga, in recent times - have always had a more confrontationalist attitude than the one by Tendulkar.

Maybe this tour might just harden him for future battles ahead. The distressing thing really is the very few positive things to come out of the tour. It was the proverbial crumbs for comfort when confronted with famine. One was the emergence of Agarkar not only as a bowler but as a combative cricketer as well. Now, only if he can score a run. The other was Laxman's innings at Sydney, which just might turn a corner for him in the international arena.

As against so many downslides - the absolute lack of sting in the bowling apart from Srinath's first spell, the Mongia affair; when a distressing lack of communication between the selectors and the Indian team management was exposed, and the damning realisation that the batsmen just aren't good enough - this really makes for sorry reading. Of course when we mention Indian batsmen, Tendulkar cannot be spoken of in the same breath as the rest of them.

And last but not the least, the uneasy silence over Azhar continues to baffle. If the team management don't want him in their team that's fine - but then the public have a right to know. If the captain and coach believe a certain player causes a disruptive influence in the team attitude they have every right to not want him in the team. And Azhar does not deserve a place in the Indian team anyway on the strength of his performances and attitude over the last one year. Of course if brought along he might have even scored a 100 or two, one will never know. But attitude and will to fight counts as much as actual scores and Azhar has shown time and again he really is not upto it. But then we Indians always shirk from discussing real issues in the open. Oh well, some things might never change, including the ways of Indian cricket. Sad.

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