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Demons of the mind

So the pitch played demon at Sydney and the disguise fooled everyone but Steve Waugh.

It was a terrible wicket for one-day cricket and it was accentuated by the fact that India are engulfed by a bout of poor decision making. They are a desperate side and they give the impression that they are playing lucky seven; but the dice is rolling the other way at the moment.

At the SCG, Debashish Mohanty must have felt like he was dropped from his own birthday list and our number five position is like the soup of the day. Cream of tomato.. umm no, sweet corn with mushrooms... maybe mulligatawny. Every team gets it wrong at some stage, certainly most touring teams do, but sometimes you wonder if bad luck is all there is to it.

Remember it could be inability, and in my view it most probably is, but this list is starting to attract a few raised eyebrows. MSK Prasad as opener in the Sydney Test, Samir Dighe at number three at Brisbane, two spinners plus a bat-waving Gandhi at the SCG. A side that is down tends to attract misfortune but this one is showing very few signs of being able to combat it. It is on a tidal wave of despair. They look like they want their baggage tags to read 'India' rather than 'Hobart'.

Interestingly, when their best players are playing, and playing well, they look like a good side. When Javagal Srinath was in the midst of a fantastic spell, with solid support from Venkatesh Prasad, they looked hungry and eager. But the moment passed too quickly and given the state of this Indian team, opponents know that they can play a waiting game. This team is running out of steam too quickly. We are running very well over 50 metres in a 400 metre race.

And the captain is starting to look like a frustrated man. And at the risk of drawing flak I will stick my neck out and say I sympathise with him. He doesn’t have the armoury to be in the war that he is in, and he is getting a bit mixed up in the roles that he is playing. The confusion in the mind is spilling over into his batting. He now has 26 runs in three innings and in two of those he has been dropped early.

And he is starting to express concern at minor issues and that mirrors the storm in his mind. Tendulkar has rarely been a nit-picker, but now he is complaining about sawdust and itineraries and I fear he is allowing his mind to get clouded. Those are small issues and by picking on them, he is giving the impression that he is helpless over the big ones.

The next five days are going to be critical and they will be a good reflection of the mental strength of this side. Either they can walk around with sunken heads and drooping shoulders and invite the clouds into their life or they can use them as a welcome time-out with the game going the other way. If the defeats continue to fester within, the next five matches are going to be painful to watch. If, on the other hand, they allow a gust of fresh air into their lives and agree that in each of the three games, they have had moments that they owned, they could well bounce back.

Whatever the strategy though, it needs to have a five match perspective. Through his own judgement and that of his coach, they have lost the services of the world’s leading run-getter in the one-day game. And through a weird decision-making process he sees his other key middle order player playing the Wills Trophy rather than the tri-series here. It is bizarre, and Indian cricket needs an explanation. >

Maybe that will clear the air. And the demons in the captain’s mind.

Harsha Bhogle